Building intentional relationships

Making friends at Corban may not be hard. Building relationships is. At times it can be tempting to have many acquaintances and a large circle of friends, but to unwittingly neglect relationships which may delve deeper. It takes far more time and energy to form these relationships, and they don’t happen by accident, but they are worth it every time.

It is first important to identify and be realistic about your expectations in relationships. Not every friendship has to mean the same thing. There is nothing wrong with having friends that you often only do fun and crazy activities with, if you acknowledge that this is the main function of your relationship. In fact, these are important relationships. They allow you to bond through activities and shared experience.

It is also important because, as hard as it can be to accept, sometimes it is simply not possible to develop  as deep  of relationships as we would like with as many people as we would like. There are only a certain number of hours in the day and a certain number of friendships that we are capable of handling.

Sometimes it can help to look and see who God has placed in your life: Hall mates, roommates, classmates, etc. At times it can be easy to let these relationships exist, but not spend time growing them. A person can have a group of hall mates they always eat meals, watch movies, and play ping pong with, but it is much different to spend time sharing and getting to know one another personally.

We must take advantage of these opportunities. It’s almost guaranteed that we will never live in such a close community of Christians again, so let us be purposeful in how we approach relationships with one another.

Next week this topic will continue with different tips on how to take steps to start building these relationships.