Building Our Relationships on Solid Principles
LearningLove.com

Copyright (c) 1999 by Benjamin Devey. All rights reserved.

What core principles guide your relationships at home, work and in the community?

"I'm trying to change the way I deal with people. I just don't know where to begin."

"As a parent, sometimes it seems as if nothing I do works."

"Why can't I find the love I'm looking for?"

I was once teaching a young group, whose attention span would have trouble crossing a street, without forgetting which direction it was headed. I decided to turn to a different subject, a topic I have been considering for twenty years. I asked the group, "If you were to come up with a comprehensive philosophy of life that covered every aspect of behavior, what would it be?" I was met with puzzled expressions. The challenge seemed insurmountable, until I encouraged them, "There is no right or wrong answer. What important concepts do you think a comprehensive philosophy ought to include?"

Suggestions started streaming in: honesty, integrity, goodness, Do unto others....

I met some puzzled stares. How did I expect them to come up with something that after several millennia still eludes scholars on the subject? I put out another challenge, "I've narrowed my philosophy down to three words." I drew three blank lines on the board. "Your suggestions are all part of these three concepts."

The guessing game intensified, now the answers became more focused. I explained my first word dealt with how I treat others. I underlined words that fell into that category. Within minutes, someone said the word.

Charity.

In the scriptural context, charity is pure love, more than a sum total of everything we know about love. It is loving with true and correct principles.

The second concept deals with my relationships with others. Regardless of how I implement pure love in my life, I have to allow others the autonomy to chose their own way to live. The yoouth came up with the next concepts immediately.

Agency.

Force is an incorrect principle--it has no place in truth. The founders of the Constitution recognized these self-evident truths: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The only way this can come about is through self-determination.

The correct exercise of agency requires one other thing. The third concept is Accountability. Without personal responsibility, agency turns into anarchy.

Each person must be responsible for his own choices. In both an eternal sense, as well as in natural outcome, we obtain the consequences of every act. For good or bad, we each shape our own world.

Charity, agency and accountability. I will spend more time on each of these principles in future topics. Each one deserves specific attention. We will see how these concepts comprise comprehensive principles in all of our relationships.



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