 I thought I'd speak to you about my top five relational wisdom tips, ideas, bits of wisdom. Top five. Everybody say top five. Top five isn't worth a lot of attention if you're 15. I'm 65. Anybody that says, here's my top five who is older, pay attention to. Especially if they're a thinker and a studier and a self-aware person and a researcher and a fascinating, curious person, I've uttered those things to my life to try and be that kind of human. So my top five aren't random, they're really thought through. Anything that makes to my top five is brutal pruning of how to do. To not make my top five my top ten. Just that, should I put that in or that in to make it into the top five. You should find out what your top five are, or top ten or whatever, and they'll change. These will all change, I don't know, maybe a year from now. I upgrade this list every year, maybe every six months, because my top five relationship bits of wisdom change as I do, they'll change as you do. But here's what I wanted to share with you today, because I think in the church world we have not been good on relational wisdom. We have not been, we've not had great relational intelligence. We're not a great emotional intelligence, which of course affects relational intelligence. I think we've been too focused on the vertical relationship with God, and we've not been good at the relationship with each other. So the vertical has been overdone, and the horizontal has been underdone, and the horizontal relationship between us all often is left too shallow and too binary. So the relationship we have with each other is very complicated. And because you yourself are a moving target, you yourself are a work in progress, you yourself are never the same on a given day, and shouldn't be. As you grow and evolve and improve and upgrade, that's why relationships get complicated. Because we're all growing and adapting and trying to be the best versions of us, or we should be. And so you're never quite the same day to day, and it's hard if you don't understand that, because you don't have a grace and allowance for that in our relationship dynamics. All teaching on relationships in the church generally has been to do with who we are in Christ, and we've tried to use biblical analogies and metaphors to make the point, and that's all well and good. But I think God expects us to go deeper than just the relationship someone had with someone in the Bible, and dig into what's that saying to us in contemporary language. So we don't leave it into the story of David and Jonathan were historical relationship teachings I grew up with, or Moses and Joshua, or Paul and Timothy, or Jesus and his team. All good, but it lacked nuance, it lacked getting deeper in case we thought the teaching is now getting a bit humanistic, and a bit too philosophical for me, a bit too new-agey for me. So we stayed, or what we thought was thorough, but it wasn't. And I know that because I've passed it for 32 years in the same church, and watched people who had relationship teaching coming out their ears of that kind, whose relationship has never got better. So I'm thinking, this deserves a little bit more thorough attention, which I want to give it with you this morning. All okay? Number one, relationships are spatial. Nobody tells us that. Relationships are spatial. Everybody belongs in a specific space in your life. The problem is, though relationships are spatial, that doesn't come with an instruction manual. So you know, yes, I get it, relationships are spatial, but who goes where? Where's the book? Where's the manufacturer's instructions of who to put where in my life? So because we know that's true, but we don't know how to navigate it, we constantly get it wrong. And if you get it wrong, if the wrong people are in the wrong space in your life, you think they're just the wrong people full stop, and I'm no good at relationships. Because a relational misalignment, a relational spatial miscalculation can make you feel, these people shouldn't be in my life at all. And what you find when you realize that people, it's like, people in a relationship like a chess board. People in your life need moving around, and people need to move you around in their life, because the space you have in someone's world today doesn't need to be the same space a month from now, a year from now, or you in their lives. And the space you are in in someone's life really matters, because if that's space you are in, if you're in close proximity with someone, and you've enjoyed that and that's being good, but now it starts to kind of get past itself by date. And it feels the proximity is not right anymore. If you don't understand this needs a spatial adjustment, what you do is you double down on trying to make it work, and it gets exhausting. Now there's tension where there didn't used to be tension. There's arguments where there didn't used to be arguments. There's stuff goes underground about each other, and all it is. And then it becomes some dispute and argument and fallout, and all it may well be is that no one had the courage to say, hey, I don't think we need to be on the phone together every day. I don't think we need coffee anymore twice a week at that coffee shop. I don't think we always need to go and do that together. I think we need to now dial that down a little bit and adjust that. That was good for the time, it was good for us both, but now it kind of feels old and a bit autopilot and a bit obligation. I'm doing it by obligation. And those are signs that the relationship will be better if you now reduce that and change the dynamic a little bit without someone feeling that you've been rude, or you've been flaky, or you've been moody, or you are cutting someone off. So we don't do it because we're afraid of that. So people stay in spaces too long in the same way, too long, and then we don't know what to do about it. So everybody belongs in a space in your life and you in their life. Jesus had the crowds, didn't he? And then he had the larger group of teen that he sent out. Then he had those 12 disciples, apostles. Then he seemed to have a closer relationship still with three and then within the three, a closer one still with one of them called John. So it seems that he knew from day one, even though they're all in the team and they're all disciples, apostles, and they're all hand-chosen, that doesn't mean they all have the same access to me. Or I want the same proximity and intimacy with them all. And this is the thing about the Gospels. Never anywhere in the Gospel is there an explanation why he excluded some and included others. It's not there. It's like God's saying, I need to explain that to you. I'm just including, excluding, including, excluding. But what we do is this, we can't bear the thought of excluding someone who's normally been included without lots of explanation. And the explanation you give makes it worse. Because no matter how you say it, they experience it as, hang on, what's going on here? What did you say, what? I'm not include, I'm not invited, why? You don't want to hang out because of what? No matter how you try to explain it, it feels like something else is not being said and it all just gets mushed and enmeshed and awkward. So Jesus didn't bother explaining. He just said, you, you, you, you and you with me. Nine, watch three, go with him. And then if the three came back with, you wouldn't believe what we saw. Because that's what we tend to do. You wouldn't believe what we saw on the Transfiguration Mountain. What? You saw Moses and Elijah, what? Yeah, and we saw the glory come down. You know what, shut up, Peter, shut up. John, you tell us about it because Peter always exaggerates. You know, humans are like, don't tell, don't tell me you don't think that was part of that team with those 12 teenage guys. That's what they were with ego and Jesus knowing that that's what he's dealing with explains nothing about who he's including, who is excluding because he knew and maybe he had multiple conversations with them that we don't know about because there's more we don't know about that we do know about where he talked some version of relationships are special. People come into your life for one of three reasons, I think generally. People are in your life for a reason or for a season or for a lifetime. People are in your life for one of three things. They're there for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And you mustn't mix them up. If people are in your life for a season, don't clink to them to make them permanent. If people are in your life permanently, don't treat them like they're seasonal. If people come for a reason, that is, they've come to help something get done in your life, they're coming to bring an opportunity or they're coming to bring an awareness to you or they're coming to help you get unstuck or whatever it may be. Don't clink to them and try to drag out their involvement in your life because you feel that reason is so good. I want you always to be here in case I need that reason again. So you have to realize that the way you attach to people is usually one size fits all. I've done a lot of research over the years on human beings' attachment styles. And there's about half a dozen attachment styles we humans have. And this happens from childhood. Your attachment style is normally embedded in you in your nurture. Sometimes nature, but in your nurture and your formative years as a baby and a toddler and a child develops an attachment style. My attachment style for most of my early life was what's called an anxious attachment style. And that was to do with my abusive background, my alcoholic, violent father. And so I became very anxious in my attachment and got very easily detached from people because I knew that to attach would be dangerous and lethal physically in my case with my family. So we all kind of had this, I think, anxiety about proximity to each other and especially to my parents. So it travels really into your life. So if your attachment style at all is of that kind, then it's hard to let someone be there for a season or just for a reason. Some people come into your life like Jethro Moses' father-in-law. He shows up for a reason to say to Moses, hey, this is going to kill you. The way you are leading is micromanaging. This will kill you. So here's a better idea, a point of the people to do what you do. So they're not all lining up to hear from, you know, the great leader, the great man of God, let's let's let's get away from that culture. And let's just appoint people to listen to people and give advice and give yourself a break. You're going to kill yourself. And Moses was, he literally was. He literally wanted God to kill him. He literally said one day, God, I can't do this on my own. Just take me out. You'd be surprised how many people have versions of that prayer in their life that are in the people business because it's exhausting. If you don't do it well, it's exhausting. So Jethro comes and says, I'm here. And then there's a funny little verse that says a Moser kind of said, goodbye to Jethro like you see later, get out of here. Because I'm sure Moses' ego was affected in that. So some people come for a reason, receive the reason, thank them for the reason and let them go. So relationships are spatial. I wonder if this week, this idea can help you navigate some stuckness in your relational life with people that you are not allowing space for in the way that you should. If you feel people are evolving away from you and you are clinging and your energy is to grasp and make it what it was before, maybe this can help you realize this is a spatial adjustment that is organic. It feels organic. I don't like it, but it feels organic. And perhaps you can allow for that to find its level in the way that it won't. If you keep trying to drag it back to what it was before. Relationships are spatial. And I realized over the years that if I didn't keep adjusting people and spaces, nobody thrived. I didn't flourish by being kept in someone's same space. I didn't flourish. My kids didn't flourish when I kept my kids in the same space as your kids get older. They need to be adjusted in their spatial place in your life. And I realized with staff and team and people that we're working, that if we didn't constantly keep adjusting and tweaking some of its tweaks, some of its large adjustments, then it all kind of feels something's wrong. That's not, it's quite natural. So where this week do you need to adjust? Nothing wrong with the person. See, the person appears to be a problem. The person isn't the problem. The space therein is the problem. If you just adjust the space, because if you have the wrong people too close and the right people too far away, you've got to adjust it. And who is right and who is wrong changes all the time. Who is good for you, who is best for you, who you've most flourished by being around, adjust for you and you do for other people. So this week do some work in that area perhaps. Relationships are special, is the first thing I want to say in my top five. Secondly, my second of my top five relational wisdom is, the version of me you have in your head is not my responsibility. What version, what version of you do they have in their head? And are you cool with that? And you know what version is because the way they talk to you and treat you and talk about you lets you know they have a certain idea of you in their mind. And if you all behave in a way that doesn't fulfill that idea, they get upset. If you deviate from the script that they have put into your mouth, this is how you respond when this happens. This is how I want you to behave when this comes up. This is what I expect from you when I tell you that. When you don't dance to that tune and when you don't act according to that script and those lines, they get upset with you. And what you're dealing with is they have a version of you in their head and a narrative around that version of you that you are not responsible for. And if you make yourself responsible for it, you will spend your life serving their idea of you, which means you can never show up as who you really are. So when you're with them, before you get to their space or before you press send on the mail back to them, you're filtering yourself thinking, I can't say that to her. I can't say that to him. So you're filtering yourself thinking, you know, the version of me that they have would respond this way. But you know it's not authentic to who you are. And the more you do that with people, the more you like schizophrenic. You're multiple personality disorder because you're trying to be the version they all have of you and they all have a different one. This is especially true with old relationships where people freeze you in time over that version of you that they've known. And when you change and grow and don't want to be that anymore, they're the worst people on this area. The people who've known you the longest are the most threatened when you start to change. Even when they see you reading a certain books, like what is that? What are you reading? What? You're listening to what podcast? You're going to see what you're going to what event? You're doing what? They realize that these are things you haven't discussed with them. These are things that haven't been signed off by them. So now it's disproportionately dramatic because you didn't tell them about it. And you didn't tell them about it because the old version of you told them everything. The new version of usually, you know what? I'm not telling them anything anymore because when I tell them what I finish up with is their version of that too. Not what I wanted it to be. So what version do you have of someone in your head that you need to let go? Because it's not just done to us. We are doing it to each other. And so where in a current relationship perhaps today this week is this a problem for you that you need to work on in your relationship life? And this is in my top five because I've become so aware over the years before I had language for it that this is the problem. The problem was that the church had a version of me in their minds that I was not anymore and actually hadn't been for a long time and either nobody notices or it's like la la la la la la la we don't want to notice he's changing because the way Paul's changing sounds like big change is coming around here. The way Paul's changing sounds like there's going to be some big cultural shifts and some different staffings and some different priorities in the way that we are doing. Exactly. And people that have a vested interest in nothing changing because certain changes affect their role and if they've attached identity to that role which ego does and you're making decisions that mean their role isn't needed anymore then all hell begins to break loose under the guise of spirituality. And nastiest of starts to emerge but really it's there's no need for it. It's just part of and because and this is why because we've taught relationships in a religious bubble then we can't do this stuff because we taught it's covenant. People said to me, I thought we were in covenant meaning you can't ever change anything about us. I thought, you know, we broke bread together you know, we stood together through difficult times I was there for you and now you're talking in a way that you don't appreciate it anymore. So the version of me they have in their head is this eternally indebted person to what they did for me. And the moment you tamper with that suddenly the relationship is in crisis and it's really not. It's only in crisis if you park up on that version and when it's threatened you think something bad's happening and it's really not. So when leaders change and leaders start to reinvent and upgrade themselves everything around them changes their marriages change their relationships change their families change their health changes their appearance changes. Why shouldn't everything else change that they're attached to? It's a really good thing. And if you allow me the space as a leader I was the pastor of this church and you allowed me space to grow and reinvent and tweak and change things so that we keep progressive and growing. If you allowed me that then you know I'm gonna allow you that. But because leaders have been controlled by people leaders keep dancing to the tune that they all keep playing. Leaders stay the version that they have of them in their minds. And so what leaders start to do is because I can't be the version I want to be I'll bring a visiting speaker in. I did this in my church I brought visiting speakers in that I felt would say something I didn't know how to say I didn't have the courage to say on the back of which I would build and I realized what I was doing was I don't need the visiting speaker. I know exactly what needs to be said and I should be saying that myself. I didn't have the courage to talk to the church openly because of what I said in the first service which is what Josh said about get a hold of that. I hope you do to put some even this stuff in context. I didn't have the courage to be open with the church about how much I was changing and how much I just didn't want to do a lot of stuff anymore. I hated pastoring because of all the stuff involving pastoring that I wasn't built for. But if the version of pastor you have in your head says that he should do this, this, this and this and I'm not built for this, this, this and this I'm built for other things which are gonna be good for you too. I'll get someone else to do all the stuff I hate doing and you won't feel any less cared for. But if the version of me, I said to people, you know, if you're in a hospital sick and I'm coming down the ward you better be concerned because there's something they ain't telling you. If you see me coming it means you're gonna be dead tomorrow because I hate hospital visitations. I hated it because I'm an introvert and what kills introverts is small talk. What's hospital bed sides? Small talk. So I, but I hate people in my church that love hospital visiting. Loved it. I'm like, yes, tag, you're it. Go, they loved it. But people would be in hospital, you know, for a couple of weeks. All our hospital visitation team would love, love, love on them for two weeks. Never without a person visiting. First time I saw them, you never visited me, did you? No, but 20 other people did. Yeah. Didn't matter, didn't matter. The version of me in their head was, I should have been there. And when I wasn't there, they felt there's no love in this church anymore. I used to go to a church where the pastor himself visited me. Yeah, go back there then because I'm gonna tell you something else about that church. It wasn't growing. Now tell you why it wasn't growing because he probably wasn't growing or she probably wasn't growing. What are you still doing in your life? Metaphorically, who are you still visiting? And it's killing you. Metaphorically, what are you still doing in your life to keep someone happy? Because you know, if you don't mail, if you don't show up, if you don't support, if you don't give money, if you don't say good on you, if you don't say well done, even though everybody's saying it, if you don't, they're gonna start feeling something's wrong with you. They're gonna start communicating to you what's going on because they're parked up on a version of you that you are not responsible for anymore and never were. You're okay? If you tried to be what you thought someone wanted and it still didn't work, your pain is about self-abandonment, not the disappointment or that apparent rejection of you. Say that again. If you tried to be what you thought someone wanted you to be and it still didn't work, then the pain you're having is about you abandoning you for them. It's not about them and their rejection of you anymore. And that's what I realized. I realized for me to keep doing that is now no longer about them. I am abandoning me for them. Never ever do that for anyone.