I’ve been seeing this truth revealed in my life a lot lately.

Everything in our lives is all about relationships … either the presence of them or the lack of them.

The “lack of” is the sad part. The “presence of” is the awesome part.

With relationships come so much fulfillment in every area of our lives. Without relationships, there are always missing pieces.

People do most things in their lives out of relationship with other people. One person will sacrifice themselves for or give of themselves to a person that they have a relationship with, but will not for someone they don’t know.

Now I realize there are exceptions … like how we give to causes and sponsor children. But, we only do this because the cause has been presented to us; we know the story and have compassion. In that way, we are connected through relationship. And, we are only influenced in this because of the relationships we have or have had in our own lives. Relationships help to make us who we are.

Of course, our most important relationship is the one we have with our Heavenly Father. The extent of our relationship with Him affects our lives negatively or positively. God grants favor to His children and blesses those who love Him and are close to Him.

The same goes with another important relationship … the one we develop with our parents. This relationship molds a lot of who we are as human beings. Again, the relationship can be negative or positive, and, in turn, ends up affecting our relationships in the future.

Then there’s all the other relationships … siblings, extended family, friends, colleagues.

I’ve really discovered that this saying rings true: “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”

Good relationships can bring lots of favor and blessings into your life. But, bad relationships can bring lots of trouble and pain into your life.

Cultivating relationships has to become a priority for us as Christians.

We HAVE to pursue relationships. It’s our calling.

Is it always easy? No.

We don’t have time. We don’t want to open up ourselves to one more person. We have enough people in our lives. How in the world can we add more?

I don’t know how; I just know we have to.

It requires us stepping out of our comfortable bubble and not just making ourselves available to others, but pursuing relationships with them. Of course, we need to pursue the right relationships. We should pursue relationships with people that we know will be a godly influence in our lives. We should pursue relationships with people whom we think need us to be a godly influence in their lives.

If you’re not open to new relationships, you’re missing out on so much!