Do your relationships have balanced giving and taking? It can sound unchristian to talk about taking, but it isn’t. Healthy relationships have mutual caring. Mutual caring involves nurturing the other person and yourself. It includes both giving and getting.

If you care about other people, you will not allow them to be selfish and concerned only about themselves. It isn’t in anyone’s best interest to be self-centered. When you ask for your needs to be met, it is risky because the other person can say no. If they say no all the time, there isn’t enough giving. If they say yes to everything you ask but don’t allow you to take care of them, there isn’t enough taking.

If you care about yourself, you will make sure your relationships have both giving and taking. If you have a relationship that is all about what the other person needs and not at all about your needs, it isn’t balanced or healthy.

Here are some things that show that you have balanced giving and taking:

• You listen and are listened to.
• You put the other person’s needs first at times and put your own needs first at times, depending on the situation.
• The other person will put your needs first at times and their own needs first at times.
• Both of you will compromise for the other person when possible.
• Both feel cared for and nurtured.

Having relationships with mutual caring is a sign of maturity. There are times when one person’s needs dominate due to unusual circumstances, but it shouldn’t be all the time.

By Karla Downing

Relationship Devotional Prayer

 
God,

Help me to make sure my relationships have balanced giving and taking.

Relationship Devotional Challenge

• Do your relationships have mutual caring?
• What steps do you need to take to ensure that they do?

Scripture Meditation

 
Philippians 2:2-4

“Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (NIV).

Ephesians 5:29

“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church” (NIV).