“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).
Many years ago Ray’s mentor gave him a bull’s eye with relationships listed in the rings. The inner most ring was God, then wife/parents, then children, then extended family, then church, then world. It was this hierarchy:
God
Wife (or parents if not married)
Children (or siblings if not grown)
Extended family
Church
World
Obviously, the last three encompass many, many people—and they have hierarchical relationships within them as well. But in a nutshell, the advice was this: When you have problems with a relationship, look at the relationship directly inside (on the bull’s eye—up one on our list above) to see what the problems are there first. Oftentimes, solving the inner problem will also solve, or at least help solve, the outer one.
For example, if my children are showing disrespect to me, I can look at how I am respecting or not respecting Ray, the inner circle on the bull’s eye that is previous to “children.” If I cannot get along with somebody at work (world), I can probably see that same problem, or a similar one, with the church, or fellow believers, in my life.
For us, this advice was a sign to always look at solving problems closer to us to help our outer relationships. It provided a tool that forced us to think about all of our relationships and their affect on any problem ones.
So many times we have used this bull’s eye hierarchy, examined our relationship with each other, then were able to peacefully resolve the problem with the child or children in question.
Obviously, it is not always the case. And certainly looking at a bull’s eye is not a sure way to solve problems. But if one of our children is stubborn towards us, “the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Sometimes straightening our kids up is just a matter of straightening ourselves up.
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