Today’s Word of Encouragement comes from a colleague and good friend of mine in the ministry, pastor Hamish Thomson of Abundant Life Church, Wellington.
Transactional v’s Transformational Relationships
One of my ‘life verses’ this year is Proverbs 4:18 and the call of God for those who love him to live in ways that light up the lives of others like a hot summer’s day.
You see, when it comes to the way we live, I think our relationships with people fall into one of two categories: transformational or transactional.
Most of our relationships are transactional. They are friendly, they are respectful, they are helpful, but they are superficial. That’s why when you’re at work and someone asks you, “how are you?” you answer, “I’m fine” – even if you’re not. Transactional relationships are safe, but they don’t build people up the way transformational relationships do.
Transformational relations are about bringing out the best in others. They are the type of relationships where you are committed to the well-being or the good of others, even if there’s nothing in it for you! There’s no transaction, no balanced ‘give and take’, no ‘what do I get out of this’, no scorekeeping: just a desire to build up and prosper the other person.
And here’s the thing. The people who have had the biggest influence in your life have been transformational types of people, not transactional. They lived and engaged you in ways that inspired you and lit up your life like a hot summer’s sun! So now it’s your turn.
Now it’s your turn to see people as people and not objects. To go beyond the superficial and start investing in others.
Start small, but be intentional. Start by resisting seeing work colleagues as rivals or burdens, instead choosing to see them as equals. Start calling out the potential in others and fan it into flame.
Because as you start taking steps to be more transformational, however small those step may be, they will grow from being like “the first gleam of dawn” to become like “the full light of day” in the lives of others!
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