Whether we have ever thought of it consciously or not, each of us takes ownership of the relationships in our lives. This may seem like a good thing, but is it?
When we take ownership of a relationship, we take responsibility for its outcome. If it fails, we perceive that we failed. If it succeeds, we perceive that we succeeded. Our personal success or failure is, in our estimation, tied to the success or failure of our relationships. Because of this, we must somehow assure that our relationships are successful so that we can be successful.
Since a relationship involves two individuals, when we take ownership of a relationship, we must take ownership of the other person in the relationship as well. We take responsibility for their thoughts, words, actions, and reactions, as these impact the outcome of the relationship. And we hold them accountable to ourselves for their participation, or lack thereof, in the relationship.
If they are behaving well and tolerating us well, we are at peace in the relationship, knowing that the relationship is successful. We can leave them alone and let them self-govern because they are obviously self-governing well according to our personal standard. But if they are not behaving well or are not tolerating us well, we cannot be at peace. We cannot leave them alone and let them freely self-govern because they are obviously not self-governing well. We must intervene somehow.
To fix the relationship, we must somehow control the other person. We attempt to do so by changing our behavior around them. We try to convince them to change by ourselves acting nicer, sweeter, more accommodating, or otherwise modeling how we want them to behave toward us. We try to change them through conversations, complaints, arguments, etc. We try to change them by withholding good from them through ignoring them, refusing to speak to them, and using other passive-aggressive methods. We try to change them by threats, abuse, or other manifestations of force. And so on.
In reality, we can never guarantee the success of any relationship because we can never actually control the other person. If we measure our personal success by the “success” of the relationship as a whole, we will always be subject to insecurity and disappointment, always be left trying to control and manipulate others, and we will frequently experience failure in our relationships. All of this is the result of believing that the relationships belong to me, and I am responsible for their success.
Why do I see myself as the owner of my relationships? It is because I am born with an inherited condition. This condition is called sinful nature. And this sinful nature automatically causes me to think something wrong about myself—that I am a god when I am actually a creature. God is the owner of everything. It all came from Him. It all belongs to Him. We are not owners. We are stewards, not of our own things, but of God’s things. It is not your computer. It is God’s computer. It is not your house. It is God’s house. It is not your car. It is God’s car. It is not your child. It is God’s child. Your spouse does not belong to you. They belong to God. It is not your body. It is God’s body. They are not your qualities and capacities. They are God’s qualities and capacities. Everything belongs to God. And you get to be a steward of everything He gives you stewardship over for as long as He gives you that stewardship.
Since everything belongs to God, you belong to Him as well. You are accountable to God, and God alone, for you belong to God alone. You are not accountable to others around you, including your spouse. You are accountable to God. But your accountability to God does not leave you indifferent towards others. You are accountable to God for how you treat others, for they belong to Him as well. And proper accountability to God will mean you love others, treat them as Christ would, and think well of them, even when they aren’t aware of it, because you know God is always aware. You aren’t just nice when they are looking or listening. You are nice all the time because God is always looking and listening.
What are you accountable to God for? Are you accountable to God for what others think? What they say? What they do? How they respond? Or the choices they make? Of course not! You are only accountable to God for what you think, say, do, and how you respond. Why is this? It is because you only have a responsibility for your own choices and decisions, not someone else’s choices or decisions.
God has created each person with their own mind, their own will, their own self-government. And no one is responsible for anyone else’s self-government. Even God doesn’t take responsibility for anyone else’s self-government. Yes, we are accountable to Him for our self-government because we belong to Him. But He is not responsible for how we govern ourselves. Only we are.
When we take ownership of a relationship, we make ourselves responsible for the other person in the relationship as well. That means we take responsibility for their thoughts, beliefs, choices, decisions, words, and actions—their self-government. We are now stepping into territory that even God won’t step into. Now I make the other person in the relationship accountable to me because I have made myself responsible for them. Their words, actions, and reactions I now take personally, because I see it all as my own responsibility. And if they aren’t speaking, acting, or reacting well, I take it as a personal offense against me, because they are accountable to me. And since the outcome of the relationship is my responsibility, because I own the relationship, I must try to fix or correct them somehow to make sure the relationship remains a success—so that I can remain a success.
The results of taking ownership of a relationship are many:
What is the solution to this problem? It is to be convicted of the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that you never own a single relationship you are in. You are only a steward of each and every relationship. You are never responsible for what the other person thinks, says, does, or however they self-govern. You are only responsible for what you think, say, do, and however you self-govern. And you are never responsible for the outcome of the relationship because the outcome of the relationship depends not only upon you, but also upon them. And you can never control or guarantee their side of the relationship.
As a steward of each relationship, you take responsibility for your side of the relationship only. You take responsibility for what you think, say, do, how you react, and how you participate in the relationship. You recognize that you are accountable to God alone for your self-government in the relationship, and you self-govern in harmony with God’s will, regardless of what the other person thinks about that—for your accountability is to God, not the other person.
Again, this doesn’t make you callous or indifferent toward others. Quite the opposite. When you have God as your source, and you know you are stewarding the relationship for Him, you take of His great, compassionate love so that you can give that same compassionate love to the other person in the relationship. You love them. You are interested in their well-being. You live to serve their best interests. But you aren’t controlled by their thoughts or opinions. You are controlled by God’s thoughts only.
You take comfort in the fact that you are serving as God’s steward, taking the needed resources from God for the purpose of giving those resources to the other person in the relationship. You take your stewardship seriously, regardless of what the other person in the relationship is doing. If they are misbehaving, that is their personal issue. You feel sorry for them for being that way. You pity them. You pray for them. You long for their freedom. But you continue to remain a faithful steward of God to that person regardless of how they are behaving. You don’t need them to be okay for you to be okay. You only need God to be okay for you to be okay.
You measure success, not by the outcome of the relationship, but by your own stewardship of God’s resources to the other person. Success is having God as your source and taking all you need from God so you can give it freely away to the other person. If they are behaving well, you take from God to give. If they are not behaving well, you take from God to give. If they are happy, you take from God to give. If they are sad, you take from God to give. You can be successful regardless of how they behave, what they say, how they respond, or what they believe, because your success is not dependent upon them. It is only dependent upon God and you.
So if they decide to leave you or give up on the relationship, you don’t take it personally. You don’t see it as a personal loss. You don’t see it as a personal failure. You love them. You hurt for them. You pity them. You know they are not free, because they are not accepting Gods love offered to them through you. You desire their freedom, and you are willing to do anything God would have you to do to help in their freedom. But you don’t need them, and you can let them go if they choose to go. You only need God, and you cannot let Him go. Love leaves them free to self-govern, even when they are self-governing in a wrong and destructive way. This is freedom. And it only comes as a result of being a steward, not an owner.
Clearly, you don’t immediately go from being an owner to being a steward. You don’t immediately go from always taking things personally and trying to control the outcome of your relationships to never taking things personally and leaving the other person in the relationship free to self-govern. There is a period (often a very long period) of transition. What does that transition period look like? It looks a lot like being the owner at the beginning. It looks a lot like being a steward at the end. And it is a back-and forth experience in the middle. It is like a baby learning to walk. Getting up and falling down is all part of the process of learning to walk. And success is determined by getting back up after every time you fall. At the beginning, there is a lot of falling. A lot of time spent on the ground. A lot of effort in getting back up. But over time, you get up faster, stay up longer, and get tripped up by fewer and fewer things.
Initially, you intellectually learn the truth that relationships don’t belong to you and that you aren’t responsible for how the other person participates in the relationship. But when they don’t behave according to your standard, you take it personally, get upset, try to control the outcomes, etc. (you fall). What do you do when that happens? You get back up. You remember the truth. You ask God to help bring that truth to your heart so that conviction settles in. You bring your wrong responses to the cross and ask God to replace your fallen nature with His unfallen nature at the cross. You accept the life of Christ in exchange for your life. And in the confidence and power of the nature of Christ, you go back into the relationship with the truth in the love and power of God. Each time you fall, don’t beat yourself up. Just come back to the cross and get back up. In time, with repetition, and in the context of surrender, the Holy Spirit will bring that truth into your heart so that you begin to respond more and more automatically in harmony with the truth, until you realize you are living the truth in your relationships without even really thinking about it or concentrating on it. It just becomes a natural part of how you live. This is the process. It takes time. Accept the grace, patience, and kindness of God toward you while you are in the process. And know that your Heavenly Father is smiling on you as you learn to walk.
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