Proverbs 25:16-17 contains some interesting advice: ?If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.? Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor?s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.?
You can get too much of a good thing.? Too much honey makes you sick.? And friends can wear out their welcome.
In Alan Loy McGinnis?s book The Friendship Factor, McGinnis names the one personality trait that gets the prize for ruining more relationships than any other: the tendency to control others.? Sometimes we love our friends to the point of smothering them.? In order to make friendships last, we have to learn to give friends the space they need.
There are three enemies of friendships.? The first enemy is insecurity.? Some people are afraid they are not worthy of anyone?s love.? If they see a friend getting close to someone else, they interfere and try to prevent a new friendship, thinking that there?s only so much to go around.? But we can?t treat people that way.? Sara Teasdale said, ?No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.?
The second enemy is jealousy.? Jealousy, according to Shakespeare, is a ?green-eyed monster? and has ruined many relationships.? If you get nervous when a friend spends time with other friends or when a couple you and your spouse enjoy excludes you from some of their social activities, you are ruining your relationships with jealousy.? The antidote for jealousy is not to put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and make lots of friends in several places.? Make older friends, and make younger friends.? Make friends at church, and make friends in the workplace.? When you have many friends, you don?t get jealous when one of them spends time with someone else.? Remember, ?Love does not envy? (1 Cor. 13:4).
The third enemy is selfishness.? Some people are so self-absorbed that nobody wants to be around them!? Jesus taught that the essence of friendship is sacrifice: ?Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends? (Jn. 15:13).
There are plenty of friends to go around.? Nurture your relationships with love, unselfishness, and plenty of space, and they will be a blessing to your life.
Source: http://www.arcoc.com/2012/09/too-much/
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