It goes without saying that God created mankind for relationships from which comes 80 percent of life’s satisfaction. To live meaningfully is to be in meaningful relationships, without which life is lonely and leaves us with an empty “love tank” or vacuum in the heart.

If we don’t know how to relate in healthy ways, we don’t know how to fully live and fully love. As a result we can impair our mental and physical health.

God himself is in relationship through the Holy Trinity and Jesus started the Christian movement with relationships: “He [Jesus] appointed twelve … that they might be with him”² Christ’s entire ministry was done in relationship with his twelve disciples, apart from his dying on the cross to bear the penalty for our sins. This he had to do alone.

As a Christian, our first need is to maintain a right relationship with God by confessing our sins, making right our wrongs, and living in harmony with his will. Trying to live the Christian life without this is like trying to go east by traveling north.

We then need close, connected relationships with people. Only then can we realize some of the deepest longings of the human heart. The reality is that we need people. Barbara Streisand sang it well: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” People who say otherwise are living in denial.

Furthermore, the degree of our mental health, emotional maturity, and physical and spiritual well-being will be reflected in the health or otherwise of our closest relationships. God’s command to “love one another” is not a sentimental suggestion. It’s an imperative—not for God’s sake but for ours.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to resolve any and all impaired relationships I may have. Help me also to live in harmony with your will so that I will have healthy relationships with myself, others and above all with you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Genesis 2:18 (NIV).

2. Mark 3:14.