In addition to writing about finding rest for your mind (click here) and finding rest for your feelings (click here), it’s important to next discuss rest for your relationships. After all, our relationships might be some of the most restful or least restful components of our lives! And restfulness in relationships contributes to restfulness in mind, body, and spirit. It simply all connects.

Identify Restful Relationships

Truth

Like Paul, you can identify and speak blessing to your grace-based, restful relationships even using his words: “For I hope to see you…and be helped by you…and enjoy your company. I ask you to strive together with me in prayers to God for me…that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.” (Romans 15:24, 30-32)

Practical Application Ideas

• Write a thank you note to someone who has gifted you with a restful relationship.
• Partner with a friend to set aside regular time to spend together for refreshment.
• Ask God for a relationship that could grow into a restful relationship. Spend time praying about how to move in that direction with one another and that the other person’s heart would unite with you in this endeavor.
• If you have an especially stressful job, ministry, situation, or relationship, prioritize having at least one relationship with another person with a similar stress load. Enjoy relating together as you pursue Him to endure and rest.

Aim to be a Restful Person in your Relationships

Truth

The entire purpose and reward of community is to make much of God together. True fellowship – centered around bringing Christ glory – will infuse health and rest into your heart and make you more like Christ. (Psalm 34:3, Isaiah 41:20, John 15:15, Romans 15:5-6, 32, Hebrews 10:24).

Practical Application Ideas

• Be reminded of The Golden Rule. Sometimes it could be a one-sided blindness that’s causing unrest in a relationship. Make sure you’re treating the other person like you want to be treated. Be thinking of how you can do your part to maintain the restfulness of the relationship. (Luke 6:31)
• Periodically ask yourself (or maybe others) the question: ‘What’s it like to live with me?’ And then rely on Christ in you to make you pleasant and loving. (Psalm 1:3, John 15:4, Romans 12:18, Galatians 5:22-23)
• Keep Jesus your first love. Surrender your sinful relationship tendencies to Him and your relationships will be more life-giving and restful. (Romans 7:23-25a, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)
• Remember you’re in a constant state of grace (acceptance) from the Lord because of Christ’s dwelling in you. The Holy Spirit is literally jealous to be the One working through you to provide grace to your relationships. The most restful relationships are the ones providing His grace to one another. (Proverbs 13:17b, Galatians 6:18, James 4:5, 2 Peter 1:2)
• To help you have Biblical expectations when it comes to friendship, read the book, Friendish: Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion by Kelly Needham. Click here for my book review.
• Don’t demand that your husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend meets your needs for rest or for anything else. Each of you singly focusing on your individual responsibility in your relationship will produce far better results.
• Watch yourself for obsessive or codependent behavior and remind yourself of your proper place and responsibility. This may be a good time to:
  • revisit the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
  • review the previous articles on rest for your mind, spirit, and feelings (click here, here, and here)
  • confess sins such as idolatry and pride
  • be on the watch for worry and fretfulness about the status of a relationship and remind yourself to focus instead on bringing rest and grace into the relationship

How to be a Restful Person in Exhausting, Anxiety-Producing, or even Toxic Relationships

Truth

Don’t follow the world’s advice to drop relationships when they get hard or offensive. Obedience to Christ may sometimes involve staying in hard relationships. (Ecclesiastes 3:1, Romans 12:9-14, Ephesians 6:1-4, Colossians 12-17)

Practical Application

• God may place you in relationships that are not give-and-take; rather, you do most of the giving and they do more of the taking. If He calls you to that, He will provide the grace you need to be able to accomplish it. (Exodus 20:12, 17; Luke 6:27-36, Romans 7:6, Philippians 4:13)
• Emotionally dependent, messy, anxiety-filled relating with others necessitates recovering relational holiness and wholeness even in the messiness of it. Learn to better relate by putting Christ between you and every person in your life and it will give you the relief and hope you’ve been wanting. This means humbly praying and trusting God to be working in the hearts and minds of others since you don’t have that power. Give Him space to work in someone else while you’re looking to Him to give you grace and strength to keep loving others.
• The Biblical application of boundaries does not usually entail you telling someone else what they should and should not do for you. It’s about you knowing your own personal responsibility, even when dealing with manipulation, coercion, and demandingness (Romans 13:8, Galatians 6:5). Click here for my article on how to have Biblical boundaries.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine your heart for any unforgiveness. Deep pain, major loss, and harm can stick with you for a lifetime. But vengeance belongs to God alone, and holding onto unforgiveness opens a door for Satan to create havoc in your life. (Psalm 94:1, 2 Corinthians 2:10-11)
  • Go on a hunt for traces of bitterness (an attitude of resentment or feeling of antagonism toward someone who has done wrong to you). Bitterness signals that more forgiveness and healing is needed. You can’t be rested and at peace when you’re bitter. And remember that even when you forgive the one who has hurt you, it’s still their job to repent. (Acts 8:23, Romans 3:23, Hebrews 12:15).
  • Embrace new meaning for what has occurred in your relationships. In your suffering, you can experience grace for your mistakes, comfort from the Comforter, seasons of counseling and discipleship by brothers or sisters in Christ, powerful purification from the Lord, and a freedom in moving forward with scars, healing, and rest. To fight against the enemy and to help your attitude in challenging relationships, worship and thank God for who He is. (Romans 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:18)
  • Add to your reading list: Help! I Can’t Forgive by Jim Newcomer. This small, yet robust booklet addresses the fears and concerns that hold you back from forgiving, helps you walk down your own pathway of being forgiven, teaches you how to guard your heart, and leaves you with practical application projects moving forward.
  • Commit to spend time in your restful relationships – with Jesus, with brothers in Christ, and with sisters in Christ – before and after engaging in your hard relationships, and you’ll be able to retain restfulness in the hardest of relationships. Support others in their hard relationships too, always building up the body of Christ to look more like Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Prayer & Blessing

“…put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts…and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:12-17)