Relationships: Two-Way Streets

February 4, 2025

“For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2 Corinthians 2:2)

Every relationship we have is a two-way street. According to the Apostle Paul, whatever we send down that street comes back up the street and has a dynamic impact on that relationship. Jesus conveys this same truth with a positive spin when He teaches hypercritical people, “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew 7:2)

This was a marketplace metaphor in the culture where Jesus lived. If you were selling oats and a fellow merchant was selling wheat, when you bought from each other you could request to use their bushel standard of measurement. Paraphrased, this means whatever standard you use when you give to another person in a relationship, they will use when they give to you.

We cannot control the weather, but we can control the emotional climate that surrounds us in a relationship. Communication is not only what is said but what is heard.  It is not only what is said but what is felt.  How does the communication you are contributing within a relationship make the other person in that relationship feel? If you’re sending negative waves into that other person’s life, is that likely to inspire positive waves in your direction?

Paul gave us another great teaching on this subject when he wrote, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for the building up of others, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)

Dick Woodward, 05 February 2011

Leave a Comment » | faith | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

A Dilemma of Porcupines

August 17, 2012

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)   

Communication is one of the greatest challenges we have in our life.  Whether it is in our marriage or in any of the relationships we have in our work and interactions with people on a daily basis, we find ourselves challenged by communication.

It takes courage to communicate because those who communicate with us often say things we need to hear but may not want to hear.  And we must say things people do not want to hear but need to hear.  In many ways when we communicate we face…

A Porcupine’s Dilemma

What’s a porcupine to do,
When faced with cold weather?
When the dark clouds can be construed,
Only as bringing a storm and nothing better,
 
For in a world of naught but porcupines,
Who among us should be so inclined,
To choose to envelop the other in ourselves,
Despite the threat of our sharp, prickly ends,
 
Is warmth so inviting,
Its promise so binding,
That a dozen pricks should be a necessary step,
In finding solace once the sun sets,
 
You see, in the end,
The coin flips between comfort and company,
Does the porcupine seek comfort in its kin,
Only to find pain through some sadistic irony?
 
Such is the porcupine’s dilemma,
As the wind begins to howl,
Should he enter his kindred’s embrace and suffer,
Or isolate himself and huddle down?        
 
(attributed to: Vishal Bala)

 We can be controlled by the fear of being stuck and isolate ourselves into a lonely self imposed solitary confinement.  Or, as courageous communicators, we can be controlled by the Holy Spirit and communicate very carefully—like porcupines embracing—and minister grace to our hearers.

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward