the key

After I became a Christian, I found myself more pessimistic about human beings. Really, if there is no God, why should we even care about others? We are just a bunch of selfish creatures. So when it comes to relationships, especially those in troubles, it is quite risky to count on the best in a person to make the relationship work.

I talked to a friend last Sunday about her troubled relationship. She asked for my advice, and I basically told her not to expect to change the other person, but she certainly needs to be responsible for her own decision in life. Besides that, I told her that unless we make God the center of our relationships, we will most likely end up in a no-win situation. We would want to prove that we are right, or we deserve more. Even if the major fault does belong to the other party, without God most of our actions are still due to selfish reasons, which won't save the relationship.

Only from our relationship with God can we possibly learn how to work on our earthly ones.