Learning to Walk in the Father’s Love Inclusion is Key to Relationship Mastery
Inclusion is a mark of maturity when shown to others who have been insensitive or have different values than you.
Inclusion is about heart-opened living:
- When others know you care, even when you have to tell them “no” or set a boundary, you are expressing good people skills.
- When people feel included, you gain leadership influence.
- Living out a core value of inclusion shows integrity – that you are able to bear the infirmities of the weak with covering love.
The Challenge
Father’s love inclusion becomes much more challenging when spouses are working out their differences, when children need to be disciplined, or when another person tries to cross your boundaries.
A level of “exclusion” seems natural when someone has been insensitive or hurtful toward you. It can especially seem instinctive to exclude others who have very different values than you do. Unresolved pain and fear tends to bring this to the surface.
My Story – Being Excluded from the Fort
When I was around 8 years old, a couple of kids in my neighborhood had built an awesome fort in the woods. They told me and another boy we had stay out. We walked away angry at not being included, so later that day we went and tore down the fort. After the other boys found out, we had a huge fight. The whole ordeal ended in a hurtful way, both physically and emotionally.
Hurt people seek to dominate by control.
The good news of the Gospel is a message of Father’s love inclusion.
How to View Sin
Too often we see sin as offending a holy God, as if God somehow didn’t know man was going to act that way. I would like to suggest another lens for looking at sin. Sin cuts off love. If I steal from someone, I hurt them. If I lie to a friend, I damage trust and intimacy in the relationship.
Sin Hurts People
Sin hurts people. God loves people and doesn’t want to see them hurt. Adam’s sin was not simply his disobedience, but his break from trusting God’s love. He didn’t even try and talk to God about it. In Genesis we could have read, for example:
“Father, I’m having these feelings that You are holding out on me and don’t want me to know good and evil as You do; that You don’t trust me to make decisions with this level of knowledge.”
But instead, Adam broke relationship and chose not to trust in love.
Father’s love Inclusion
Father’s response to him was incredible though. He had to set boundaries with Adam, but not in anger; rather with a broken heart.
Father then sent Jesus so we could have a way back to His heart.
Facebook Quote
There was a great quote I found on Facebook:
“The true mark of maturity is when someone hurts you and you try to understand their situation instead of trying to hurt them back.”
This is Father’s love inclusion.
Of course God doesn’t condone sin. And of course there are times we need to set boundaries with others. However, the heart motive is hugely important.
A Core Value
Seeing Father’s love inclusion toward you, not just in an intellectual understanding, but daily in your heart, even in your failures, will cause this value to flow from you into others.
We are all on the path of learning we are loved and towards a love-based holiness. Let’s help the people that we encounter move more into love by expressing to them Father’s love inclusion.
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Great stuff as usual Robert and Cyndi! I can sure relate to the fort story and the whole “Exclusion” thing.