Refusing to understand is very very very much different from cannot understand A relationship ends because of a misunderstanding between two or more people.

Our happiness, well-being and sense of ourselves all depend on the right relationships. But if our relationships are dysfunctional, we will definitely be dysfunctional.

As religious people we learn how to love one another and how to build healthy relationships from the Bible, from our experiences and from other people. It also helps us explore how God’s love is the foundation of a healthy relationship.

Most of our time and money are spent cultivating “relationships,” and rightly so. Man is a social animal. We cannot be fully human without relationships. From conception, we develop a relationship with our mother, sensitive to her moods and physiological states.

As we develop relationships with our mother, father, brothers, sisters and relatives, we also become very close to some individuals — best friends, kindred spirits and, for most of us, eventually a spouse and children.

Perhaps we could have a better idea on how a relationship works by looking at the Holy Trinity: a Community of Persons. The Church teaches us the deepest truth that God has given us in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

God is one, but He is never alone. God is a community, a relationship of persons. Three persons in one God. God is relational, and that is why we are hard-wired for relationships, for we are all made in His image. The relationship among Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a right relationship, and it reveals to us what our relationships can be. The Father gives to the Son rather than takes from Him. Life is about giving, not taking. We call this “stewardship.” The Father gives Himself to the Son, who receives Him; the Son gives Himself in return to the Father, Who in return receives Him.

Our own relationships are dysfunctional to the degree that we reverse this divine model. When we take from another person rather than give, we turn the divine pattern on its head. On the other hand, when we refuse to receive the gift of another person, we refuse happiness. If we want right relationships, and the vitality that comes from them, we must imitate God’s relationship with Himself. The Bible tells us so. Jesus and the Father are One, but they are distinct persons. The closest anyone comes to this is our relationship with another person, while remaining as distinct individuals.

God will always be in a relationship with us, even as He is eternally in a relationship with Himself.

Yes, we believe in our relationship with God, but we doubt. We believe in our relationship with other people, but we doubt.

The solution to this dilemma of human relationships — we believe but we doubt — is our relationship with Christ. If my friendship with God is all right, my friendships with others will be perfectly all right.

Do you want a right relationship even with yourself? With others? Then work for a right relationship with God.

Take time to pray, to listen to God and speak to Him, spend time with Him. If I am a man of prayer, my personal relationship with God will be right, and if my personal relationship with God is right, my human relationships will be perfectly all right.