Make every effort to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island…
"To find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him/her is a blessing.”
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
Forward Friday takes another peak at friendships that matter because to walk this road of life alone is tough; to walk with friendships that don’t add to our lives is a dredge, a weight we don’t need. Relationships have taken a beating during this past 2 1/2 years; but all is not lost if we can put some good things in place to grow our friendships!!
Honor, respect, and honesty should be hallmarks of a powerful friendship! As always, there is good medicine at the end!
Let’s Get Into This!
A hallmark of powerful relationships is to honor one another.
There is a caution from the book of Romans that says to
“Honor one another above ourselves.”
“Honor one another above ourselves.”
I know in this dog-eat-dog type of world, that doesn’t quite fit the bill but………
To honor someone means “to regard or treat (them) with admiration and respect.”
Our culture typically reserves honor for people we consider important, highly accomplished, or of strong influence.
It doesn’t even occur to most people to honor those whom we consider beneath us, or even perhaps at the same level. Yet there is no qualifier to this instruction.
It is telling us to honor all people, and it even applies to those we work with.
What does it look like to honor someone?
The way we speak to people, the respect we give, the commitment we make to listening with the intent to understand.
I think, over the years, the workplace is a perfect melting pot or case study to see who honors who, how and why.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that those who only seek their own honor or demand that type of honor be given to them as if they are some sort of royalty have little or no value content in relationships and it might be suggested that their lives, while on the outside looks good, mostly comes up short or empty.
What Does Honoring Look Like?
I can remember leaders who, thought they only deserved certain privileges even though there were worthy workers who earned the right to have some of those same privileges but were omitted from such because they were a rung down from that person.
Or
It includes acknowledging the contributions of others, asking for and valuing their opinions, and investing time to get to know our coworkers.
What about honoring what we say and do what say? I think that sometimes, some people do not keep their promises because somewhere in the back of the mind, it’s not a big deal.
How many families, friendships, businesses have been shattered, torn apart because we, for some reason didn’t think it a big deal to keep our word or do what we said we would do?
It has a lot to do with honoring people. Because if we did, some of the things we say, don’t say, do, don’t do wouldn’t happen that affect those we are in relationship with of any kind.
Honor is a 2-way street and the more we can see that honoring others gives and brings life to others, the more we can and should do it.
It really makes a difference.
Honesty
Billy Joel sang this song a few moons ago and sadly, some of the words ring true.
Remember this:
If you search for tenderness It isn't hard to find You can have the love you need to live But if you look for truthfulness You might just as well be blind It always seems to be so hard to give
Honesty is such a lonely word Everyone is so untrue Honesty is hardly ever heard And mostly what I need from you
I can always find someone To say they sympathize If I wear my heart out on my sleeve But I don't want some pretty face To tell me pretty lies All I want is someone to believe
Wow! Think about it; a lot of the time, we will say that we want all the “Love” moments but oh, if someone gives us a dose of honesty, we can get a little craggily but when we are in powerful relationships, we need those who are close to us that we can have honest reciprocal moments.
There is a verse that says, “Have I now offended you because I spoke the truth?” When there is no love, care, honor in our relationships, it’s hard to accept honesty moments.
But when there is…. We can grow, we can become better all because we are in covenant relationships in our tribe.
The type of relationships that run deep and are part of our journey to be the healthy, vibrant, alive people we are supposed to be.
Now For Some Good Medicine
The words we speak have power. Proverbs 16:24 says kind words actually promote health. Proverbs 18:21 reinforces that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.”
Our words can build someone up emotionally and physically, or our words can tear them down. Even constructive thoughts can be spoken from a place of love, encouragement, and belief in the other person’s ability to grow.
When we allow Jesus to help us, He can empower us to speak encouraging words out of an overflow of love when we remain committed to staying connected.
Why not use the words we speak to honor our friends and others, and that we can speak words of life especially when honesty is on the menu?
The Things I Think:
One of my friends many moons ago took me out for lunch. He was one of my trusted leaders in my outreach group.
The reason for lunch was that he had seen some blind spots in my leadership team and wanted to make some suggestions. While I listened, I wasn’t paying attention to what was being said enough to look at what I was doing and allowing to take place.
Because of the miss on the honesty moment, there were adverse effects that we encountered that could have been avoided had I not been resolute in my own thinking when “Life” was shown to me in the “honesty” words that were delivered to me by my friend.
In my next assignment, I remembered the mistake of the previous miss and was quick to make adjustments that brought health for my new group because this time, I made the choice, because of a powerful relationship to receive the message of truth.
A Cautionary Tale
Sometimes, it is forgotten that “honesty” must come with a love, care and constructive mindset. Just because we may be “right”, if we have little or no charity when we speak, we’re not much more than a clanging bell or cymbal.
It’s why being in growing and nurturing tribes help each other in the growth of making powerful relationships work.
It’s kind of “Do Unto Others” territory that we should be considering when we speak.
It also stands to reason that being tone deaf, that no one can tell us anything when in those same relationships, when honesty is shared with us, means that we, on that side of the ledger need to examine ourselves.
It’s kind of “Do Unto Others” territory that we should be considering when we speak.
So, Unleashing Powerful friendships is not something that floats out of nowhere; it is intentional that has honor and honesty tattooed all over them.
Walking into the weekend, these friendships have tried and true expectations…
Have a construct for forgiveness. .. unwavering commitment. ...Trustworthy. ...Truly generous ... Encouraging each other to stand strong. ...Selfless love and a servant heart…
I Love my friends…..they mean the world to me and make me better!!
Learning and Walking with you in the continued process of growing Honoring, Honesty Relationships; there is power in growing these relationships!
Dave
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