How to Preserve Your Relationships

Colossians 4:6 “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

Every relationship is preserved and nourished though fellowship, and the greatest tool of fellowship is communication.  Salt has many different purposes. One is adding taste to food. And grace adds flavor to speech. Salt is a preservative, and speech that issues out of the nature of grace will preserve relationships. “Let your speech always be with grace.” Ephesians 4:29 admonishes us “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. “Do you know what grace is? Grace is not giving people what they deserve; grace is giving them what they need. You say, “My wife does not deserve that kind of speech,” or “My husband does not deserve those words,” but that is more reason to speak with grace because the other person needs it. Do you know why people cannot be intimate in relationship? One of the reasons is because we are afraid to expose ourselves. We are afraid we will get criticized. If I expose my inadequacy, then I’m afraid I will not be accepted. Out of acceptance grows trust. And then out of trust, there comes intimacy. And so, you see, intimacy can only grow where there is a place of safety. Grace gives space for safety, and it builds bridges instead of tearing them down. When has someone extended grace to you when you did not deserve it? What would it look like to extend grace to the people around you? What makes that difficult? The answer might be pride. Consider a recent conflict you were in. How did you act at that moment? How might you have responded more graciously? I encourage you today to be gracious with your speech in all your relationships!