Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships

by Edward T. Welch

Our calling is to care for each other’s souls. We want to bring our struggles to the Lord and to each other so that the church can be strengthened and the world can witness wisdom and love.

Apparently, the Lord is pleased to use ordinary people, through seemingly ordinary acts of love, to be the prime contributors to the maturing of his people.

Our helpfulness—our care for souls—starts with our need for care. We need God, and we need other people. Maturity through dependence is our goal.

Augustine wrote, “That first way [to truth] is humility; the second way is humility, and the third way is humility.”

Humility simply acknowledges our many sins and limitations, and it responds with, “I need Jesus, and I need other people.” It is an attractive package that includes trust in God’s control, confidence in the Lord’s forgiveness and love, and an openness that comes not from having to be someone but from resting in Jesus. It turns out that the simple acknowledgment of our neediness and weakness opens a door to the grace of God where we find confidence, peace, security, wisdom, strength, and freedom in him.

God takes the initiative and moves toward us; we take the initiative toward others. This is simple teaching with endless applications.

He says “I love you” first, even when we respond with an indifferent shrug or the equivalent of a passing, “Oh, thanks.” And in this we discover why it might be hard for us to move toward others: the one taking the initiative in the relationship—the one who loves most—is the one who risks humiliation.

Too often we are silent when we know of someone’s trouble. Silence is the same as turning away.

Know the heart, know the person. Our interest in helping one another pushes us beyond routine conversations and into the realm of the heart. A clear guide to this terrain can enrich all our relationships.

You know you have entered into the heart when you discover wants, affections, or desires.

“What have been the highlights of your day?” “What has been especially hard?” Questions like these set us in the right direction. They lead us to natural desires satisfied or denied, and they are typically the first step into the heart.

Here is how we move more deeply into someone’s life:

1. Ask, “How are you?” Then follow the strong emotions. This is the way into the heart, and this is where help begins. We listen for the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, and we take an interest in them.

2. Enjoy the good. We search for “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23) and other character qualities that look like Jesus. When we see or hear those reflections of Ch...

3. Have compassion when there is trouble, and there will be a lot (John 16:33). The longer you walk with someone, the more trouble you will hear. We w...

If we are to help wisely, we want to know the heart and the significant influences on the heart. Among those many influences are two representatives in particular: other people and our physical bodies.

Help, at its best, brings Christ early and often. When we hear of overwhelming circumstances and relationships, we want to help one another speak these troubles to the Lord, ask for his compassion and strength, and be assured of his faithful love.

Here is a general rule: the more you understand a person’s physical weaknesses, the more patient you will be with that person.

Though we might think that real help comes through dramatic and new insights, most help tends to come in more ordinary ways. It comes through our personal engagement with each other, our attention to Christ, and prayer.

The rule for being personal is to say something when you are given access to someone’s treasures.

As a variation of the Golden Rule you could also consider what has been unhelpful to you and others. For example, it is almost always unhelpful to give advice to someone who is troubled unless the troubled one asks. Advice is what we would do in another’s situation, even though we might never have been in that situation. It typically sounds teacher-like, and it bypasses compassion. It is rarely personal. So hold back your advice unless it is requested.

You don’t have to know all the answers. Humility and love want to know more, so you ask for more. You ask what has been helpful and unhelpful. You consider how to pray. Then there is always more help available in the larger body of Christ, so we seek help together.

Hardships and suffering are everywhere, and Scripture counters by speaking to our troubles on nearly every page. The exodus story leads the way.

we notice two things: 1. Hardships are unique. No two forms of suffering are identical. 2. Hardships share something in common. They are painful and can leave us feeling at the end of ourselves. This is the reason why one psalm can speak to so many different troubles.

The wilderness is hard, and we respond with compassion.

More is happening in the wilderness than hardships.

When trouble comes, we can be certain that we will hear Satan’s lies that raise doubts of the Lord’s generosity, love, and truthfulness.

The wilderness is an opportunity for faith.

Wise conversations will talk about sin. Though we might prefer to avoid this, we know that we all struggle with sin, and we all need each other’s help. As with suffering, we offer that help very carefully.

Keep this general rule in mind: we talk about the hard things and good things before we talk about the bad.

When we see sin, we are close to the light. Only when we don’t see our sin should we be suspicious of our hearts.

Our goal is to contribute to a community in which it is increasingly natural to talk about sin and ask each other for help.

Sin becomes public in three different ways: someone confesses it, we see it, or we are told about it. Each of these suggests different responses.

If you have clear evidence of sinful actions, be specific. If you have concerns or questions, simply raise them without accusing. All this can be hard, but, if we are left with regrets, most of us regret not saying something.

“We are in this together.” That might mean you don’t fully understand the nature of another’s sin, but you will be right next to him, with patience and kindness, in the battle. It can also mean that you do understand his sin because you too struggle with a variant of it. Whatever sin you see in others, a brief search usually reveals that you too are vulnerable to the same kind of sin. Your version might look different but comes from the same renegade desires.

First, Jesus is inviting us to think about something. Sin tends to look less attractive when it is closely inspected. Second, Jesus is inviting us to a conversation. He is asking questions in order to get a response. “Come now, let us reason together” is a standard way the Lord approaches our sin.

Sin is always about God, whether we are aware of that or not. It is bent on independence.

Satan’s lie suggests that God is like a mere human and his grace and love are restricted and stingy. May we never be fooled by such lies. We are a people who were loved even when we opposed the Lord, we rest in Jesus’s completed sacrifice, we rely on the Spirit’s presence and power, and we can have hints of joy in everyday life.

Could you imagine a community in which we can confess our sins to one another, and we respond to such confessions and pleas with humility, gentleness, patience, and prayer?