Stewards: Steward Your Relationships

Why do I feel lonelier the more independent I get?

God says out loud that it is not good for the man to be alone, and he says it before sin enters the picture. Being made for someone else is not a weakness we outgrow; it is how we were built from the start.

Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Genesis 2:18

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12

God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.

Psalms 68:6

What does it actually look like to love someone well when it costs me?

Paul spells love out in verbs rather than feelings, and almost every one of them is a decision made when the other person is inconvenient. Jesus anchors it by loving his own to the end, including the ones who would fail him that night.

Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:34–35

But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

How do I stay close to people who are nothing like me?

Proverbs uses iron on iron: friction, not sameness, is what sharpens a person. The people who disagree with us and push back are doing something a friend who only agrees never could.

Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance.

Proverbs 27:17

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10

…with all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:2–3

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

How do I keep from taking the people closest to me for granted?

Stewardship means remembering that the people in our lives are entrusted to us and not owned by us. David and Jonathan, and Paul's care for the churches, show friendships treated as something worth deliberately protecting.

When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day, and wouldn’t let him go home to his father’s house any more. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.

1 Samuel 18:1–3

I thank my God whenever I remember you, always in every request of mine on behalf of you all, making my requests with joy, for your partnership in furtherance of the Good News from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. It is even right for me to think this way on behalf of all of you, because I have you in my heart, because both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the Good News, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how I long after all of you in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:3–8

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12