Challenges are unavoidable in our daily lives, especially in our relationships. All challenges must have their ultimate purpose and benefit of shaping our character, teaching us new and vital lessons of life, toughening us, drawing us closer to God for godliness, and humbling us to be more repentant, kind, and compassionate. But we must live in such a wise and godly way that we can avoid unnecessary and destructive challenges due to recklessness, pride, laziness, stubbornness, disobedience, foolishness, immature decisions, and unwise choices. Today, many of us face the huge challenge of feeling un-loved and un-accepted, and feeling rejected in our marriages, courtships, homes, and families, which are all transferred to churches, institutions, and the workplace. Women in particular are the chief victims. To deal with the challenges of love and acceptance, and to also avoid rejection, I will offer a few suggestions: 1) Begin Your Relationship In The Right Way Do not start your relationship with a faulty start of negative factors such as immorality, rebellion against parental authority (or authority of your elders), and lightheartedness, and settle in marriage or the love relationship with that weak or poor foundation. In many of such instances, pregnancy and intense sexual activity results, which is then converted into marriage, without careful consideration of future implications, and in-built conviction and desire to sacrificially love and accept the partner without dependence on mere feelings and emotional decisions. 2) Let Your Relationship Be Based On True Knowledge Make all the necessary inquiries that will enable you to ensure that you know very well, the person you are going to share your life with. Gather as much information and important knowledge as you can, about his past life, his present lifestyle, his personality, and his character. Be fully aware that you fall in love with a personality, but you finally live with a character. Knowledge is what we really use to live with people. Therefore, pray to the Lord to show you all that you need to know, and use all the means available to you to gather essential information about the person before you make a commitment. Beware also of false or distorted knowledge about the person, which could cause you to start or continue the relationship with doubts, suspicion, and fear. If you allow yourself to be fed by wrong advice and information from family members and friends, or become rooted in old-fashioned cultural and traditional beliefs that do not promote meaningful relationships, then you can set the pace for behavior and acts that would breed rejection, due to conditions that would not permit genuine love to be established between the two of you. 3) Check Your Motives; Be Sincere, And Have Insight Examine yourself critically and find out if a habit, an offence, or fault of yours is not contributing towards the other person’s un-loving attitude towards you. If you discover any negative factor on your part, then make the necessary changes (including real repentance and apologies for offences), and allow your new behavior and lifestyle to build fresh love and acceptance in your mate or friend. It is common to also discover that people marry their partners or pick lovers and other partners for because of business advantages, beauty, fame, financial position, talents and gifts, desire to use the woman to bear children for him (or the woman simply wanting a man who can make her pregnant), and other forms of riches and gains as the overriding motive. Although several men deceive and take advantage of women, there have been cases where a man sincerely loves a woman, but it is rather the woman who camouflages her true motives, and creates a false bond with him merely to use him and gain from his efforts and resources. After a while the man discovers it and begins to pull away until all of his love and acceptance of the woman erodes away completely. It is important to examine your true motives and deal with any insincerity in your mind and heart. Even when you are wrong in any area or wrong at anytime, do the best you can to ensure that you are sincerely wrong and not deceitful or mischievous. If you realize, that the word “love” is used in the “love affair” as a term more than a definition of things practised in the relationship, then both of you must thoroughly address the issue. Sometimes the person has not really opened his heart to accept you, but “loves some things of yours” or “some things about you”, but does not genuinely love you as a person. In such cases you should know that you have already set the stage for future rejection and absence of love in the relationship. If you do business, engage in ministry, or run an organization with someone whose motive is to simply use you for his selfish ambitions, then you must be sure that in the end the man will not treat you fairly, and will not exhibit the love and acceptance you deserve or expect from him. 4) Engage In Open Communication And Dialogue Communication is the blood of all relationships, and your relationship will therefore be anemic or lifeless if communication does not flow from both sides of the couple or lovers in the love affair, marriage, or relationship. Open and sincere communication is the foundation for true and total knowledge that will be synthesized by the mind and heart to generate and build true love that is enthusiastic, satisfying, and sustaining. Learn to be a good listener in order to ask intelligent and necessary questions, and offer good answers. Every person who is a poor listener is always a very poor communicator as well. If God wanted you to talk more than to listen, He would have given you two mouths and one ear! Please, learn to listen to people, if you are ever going to understand them, agree to work with them in unity, and be of a blessing to them. 5) Learn To Forgive Mistakes, offences, disappointments, and surprises are characteristic in any relationship. Anyone who is not ready to accept and deal with them effectively will be a poor lover, companion, family member, or friend. True knowledge of the person you are dealing or living with, resulting from open-hearted frequent communication, will always enable you to excuse the one, give benefit of the doubt, and especially understand your partner or friend, forgive or deal with the particular issue effectively in your mind and heart, talk matters over, continue to believe each other, and move along progressively with increasing love in the relationship. Forgiveness is a contract you sign with God in prayer to “forgive the one as Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). It does not mean that when you later see the person you will suddenly feel abundant love in your heart for him or her. You need to allow the circumstances to break and humble you before God, as you thoughtfully apply wisdom to take all the possible physical steps to assure the one of your forgiveness, release the person from the guilt of the offence, and gradually build love and trust again. God has already warned us that un-forgiveness will always hinder the answers to our prayers, and prevent God from forgiving our offences against Him (Mathew 6:14, 15; Mark 11:26). 6) Determine To Be A Consistent True Lover If you want people to love you, then make every effort to give love (first) and learn also to accept love from others, and be a good steward (manager) of love. Let your love and acceptance become faithful and consistent. You can do so by depending on God’s power through prayer and obedience to God’s word, constant forgiveness, and meaningful acts of love. In my book The Fundamental And Special Needs of Men and Women, I stated that in my opinion, there are five primary factors that define your love for someone. You must look out for the person’s: a) Welfare --- what promotes the person’s prosperity and progress in life. b) Needs --- what is necessary for the one to live normal life as a man or woman in a particular capacity, in order for the person to grow to full maturity. c) Interests --- what delights the person, what he or she engages in to gain satisfaction, what makes the one happy, and what provides joy for the individual according to the person’s personal traits and natural make-up. d) Rights --- the important things that society or the institution in question (e.g. marriage) requires that the person obtains for himself or herself without denial. e) Opinions --- the sincere ideas, concepts, suggestions, and inputs of the person towards the progress of all of you in the relationship. 7) Learn To Accept People If you do not train yourself to make room in your heart to accept people, then it will be difficult for people to accept you, because they will also sense that you do not accept them, and they will therefore find it hard to accept you. The heart of man has a door that you can open or close. Paul told the Corinthians: “Open your hearts (receive us) (1 Corinthians 7:2). I have discovered that the mind is the key to open the heart. Once you make up your mind about someone (to reach out to the one or not) in a positive or negative way, you will either go all out to open your heart to the one, or continually close your heart to the person. There are men who had children with their wives, gave them all the physical care, and died, leaving behind money and property for the family. But as the wife and children stood by their coffin, they asked in their minds: “Who really is this man?” This is because Dear Daddy (Dear Husband) never really opened his heart to the wife and children, and so the family knew very little about his private life or his mind on various issues of life. You do not have to desire, admire, or have any special liking for everything in the life of someone before you accept the person. Learn the secret of unconditional acceptance with the help of God, while you still maintain your integrity, and gradually relate to the person lovingly and patiently until you become an agent of change in the person’s life, and create a condition for your heart to accept the person more. You have to evaluate the total person on the basis of God’s love for you and for the one. If he or she is snobbish, mean, and un-loving, then you need to examine the one closely and understand the basis of his or her problem, and not take the attitude too personally as special hatred for you alone, although that could also be true in some instances. Aim at praying for and helping the one by being a good example of love and acceptance. Focus on the good things you see in the person now; admire those desirable qualities, and develop a heart of humility and compassion for the person as you interact with the one, and wait for God to work more in that person to transform him or her and produce other desirable characteristics that are not yet present. You will thereby develop an excellent godly character that will have the capability to face every challenge of love and acceptance boldly and effectively. You will not become a victim of the constant self-pity and downcast spirit of people in relationships that is eating them up in their private lives, and has rendered them confused, fearful, sorrowful, rejected, dejected, disappointed, and unproductive. You can renew your love and learn real affection and endurance in your relationships, if you tap into God’s power and determine to develop the moral strength in accepting and being kind to the partner, family member, or friend who makes you feel un-loved or unaccepted. Tune in to JOY 99.7 FM in Accra, Ghana on Saturdays at 5:30 am – 6:00 am (Ghana Time) or 12:30 am – 1:00 am (US Eastern Time, November - March) and listen to Dr. Kisseadoo's broadcast "Hope For Your Family". Access on the Internet using MYJOYONLINE.COM, and click on “Live Radio”. Obtain more information from Dr. Kisseadoo’s book “Challenges of Modern Men and Women In Relationships (plus 7 other books) by searching online from: RedLeadBooks.com, using his name, or from Amazon.com. Contact Dr. Kisseadoo in the USA (757-7289330) for copies of all of his 13 books or free counseling and prayer. Visit our website: www.fruitfulministriesint.com for essentials that will enrich your relationships and ministry. Call 233-20-8209567 in Accra or 233-275-353802 in Kumasi for message CD’s, books, free counseling, prayer, and seminars. Use DrSamuel Kisseadoo to access his Wall on Facebook.com. Copyright December2010 Rev. Dr. Samuel A. Kisseadoo (Professor of Biology, USA). Founder and President, Fruitful Ministries International Inc. (Evangelistic & Teaching Ministry). 6 Red Robin Turn, Hampton, Virginia 23669, USA. Ph 757-7289330 E-mail: kisseadoo@msn.com