The Emotional Bank Account

Hello people

Like I said yesterday, I am in a place of self-evaluation. These days, I am taking a lot of time to assess relationships. I love relationships because God is all about relationships. He created us to relate to Him and to each other in the beautiful earth that He created. I think this is one reason that the enemy is out to attack relationships in all forms. These days, broken families, marriages and hearts are becoming too much of a norm and i think it is time we all looked inwards to ask ourselves and try and answer 'What is going on?' because most of the time we kid ourselves that the answer to most of our problems is 'out there'. The 'it is your fault' mentality is killing a lot of relationships and as i evaluate mine, i want to work from the inside out. Private victory precedes public victory.
Today's blog is something I learnt from the book I am currently reading, 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey. It is a really great book for people who are considering changing aspects of their personal lives. The main focus is on character, achieving independence so that we can move to a higher level of living which is interdependence. I cannot do it on my own, neither can you we depend on relationships and if i have problems relating i am reducing my effectiveness.
Therefore, the emotional bank account comes in, unlike other accounts we are used to this account cannot be opened in Natwest, Barclays or First Bank. I open it with you, the person I am in a relationship with. I use the word relationship here in a very 'open' manner. It could be a family relationship or a relationship with your spouse, or your boss, or your customer but as long as there is a relationship there is an emotional bank account. This bank account is a measure of trust, the feeling of 'safeness' that I can have in you as a human being.
Each day, we have an opportunity either to make a deposit or a withdrawal but just like the regular bank continuous withdrawals without any deposits results in us going into the RED!!
We then wake up and wonder 'where has the love gone' or 'Why is all this happening', it's because we have ignored the law of balance.
So ask yourself today like I will (after analysing the results of my experiments!!!)
1. What are the key relationships in my life?
2. What does the statement of account between I and the person look like?
3. What can be done to maintain a healthy balance between both of us?

Deposits include integrity; STOP PRESS a lot of us use this word, integrity is different from honesty. My own definition of both terms are; Honesty is telling the truth about the past while integrity is telling the truth about the future. Integrity means if i tell you i will do something, I do all that is in my power to make sure that I do it and if i can't I get back to you with an explanation of why I couldn't. A lot of people underestimate the power of integrity as a deposit. Other deposits are courtesy, acts of kindness, listening e.t.c. Another point to note is that as we are all different what constitutes an effective deposit to you might not be a big deposit to the other person therefore we must learn about what the other person's needs are (more on that later if I can get time to discuss 'love languages'!).

There will be withdrawals, life is not a bed of roses, hard times do come, we are fallible and we make mistakes BUT if you have prepared a good, strong foundation when the storms of life come, you will remain standing like the man who built his house on the Rock though the winds came, the house might shake but it won't break.

Gotta get back to work now (lots of number crunching and deep thinking required... goodness gracious!!!) but remain blessed and highly favoured.

Put a big smile on your face today, just because Jesus loves you and because He is smiling right back.

Me