Your capacity for closeness can be a slippery slope You cannot always avoid conflict, and once in it, Ken Sande’s, The Peacemaker, offers solutions diagrammed as the slippery slope below teaching responsive, resolving, reactive love. Your capacity for closeness can be an upward climb But oftentimes you can make peace by planning peace well enough to bypass serious conflict and go straight to joy (Proverbs 12:20b). A capacity for closeness is a gift that looks like initiating,

“So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers,...

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and...

“Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ~ Matthew 26:41 “No...

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the...

This list simply categorizes the ways we go wrong with people (fake, fight, forward, flight) but doesn’t delve deep into how we go wrong with God, ourselves, and things, though it touches upon them. We can find many things to do that are against the law to try to make ourselves feel better, but we can ask God to give us his Spirit and his Spirit’s fruit. Here is the list that we want to pray to practice: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness

The last on the list of how you go wrong relationally is people-avoider. In secular object relations theory parlance, it is called alienation. Or for short, we can call it flight. This is where you are tired of all of the drama, all of the misunderstandings, all of the previous three ways of going wrong, and you see no alternative but to withdraw. You perhaps are not a hermit, but you will not let others know what you really think, you will not initiate communication in any f

The third on the list on how we can go wrong relationally, is people-addict. In secular object relations theory vernacular, this is called insecure attachment, another word you could use is forward. You feel that you cannot get along in life without having a BFF, without having people nearby, without getting affirmation, or without having approval from people for every decision. You can tend to suffocate a person, as you cling to them for your very identity and sustenance not

The next way we can go wrong is people-annoyer. The secular object relations theory label for this is called social incompetence. I know,...

The first way that you can go wrong on this list, is people-pleaser. In secular object relations theory lingo, this points to...

I hate to focus on what’s wrong, but sometimes it does us good...