How To Include Someone In Your Life

Who should you be including in your life that you haven’t?

LET’S FIND THE MISSING PERSON

Open your phone right now. Scroll through your contacts. Somewhere in that list is a name you pass over every time, without even thinking about it anymore. You don't call them. You don't text them.

Your thumb just knows to skip past that name the way you skip past a song you've heard too many times. Who is it?

It’s probably not someone who wronged you to justify the silence, just someone you’ve become accustomed to avoid. Why is that?

Sorry, I've been on a relationship kick lately, watching families and friendships all around me quietly come apart. Not with an explosion, but with a slow leak.

Some of these have real animosity underneath them, others are just cordial, pleasant at Christmas, silent the other 364 days. Either way, the outcome's the same. Someone who used to be included isn't anymore.

HOW DID THE DISTANCE HAPPEN

Here's what causes me to pause and think. Most of the time, you don't decide one morning to stop loving your brother. It just happens through a thousand small decisions to not call, not visit, not ask the hard question that would actually reconnect you.

Distance isn't usually a decision. It's a default. It's what happens when nothing intentional is happening. You have to be intentional - it’s just the truth.

Think about a porch light. Somebody has to flip the switch every evening, or the house just goes dark. Nobody has to do anything dramatic to lose the light. They just have to stop reaching for the switch. That's what's happened with that name in your phone. Nobody destroyed the relationship. Somebody just stopped reaching for the switch.

WE HARM OURSELF BY DISTANCE

Neuroscientist and researcher Dr. Andrew Newberg has spent years studying how the brain is wired for connection, and one of his findings is worth sitting with: isolation doesn't just feel bad, it measurably changes how the brain processes fear, trust, and even physical pain. We were built for proximity to other people. When we lose it, something in us actually starts to deteriorate, not just emotionally, but physically.

In other words, that name you keep scrolling past isn't a neutral situation you're simply tolerating. It's costing you something, whether you feel it yet or not.

THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT YOURSELF

So ask yourself the harder question underneath today's topic. Why did you actually stop including that person? Was it truly circumstance, distance, a busy season? Or is there something you've never said out loud? An offense you're still holding. A version of forgiveness you've never actually extended, or never actually asked for?

The Bible gives us a strikingly different picture of what it looks like to include someone. David and Jonathan had every reason not to be close. Jonathan was the king's son, the heir to a throne David was about to take. By every political and social logic, they should have been rivals. Instead, Scripture says,

"Jonathan made an agreement with David, because he loved David as much as he loved himself." (1 Samuel 18:3 NCV) As much as he loved himself. Do you love people like that?

That's the standard. And it's the same standard Jesus later named as the second greatest command in all of Scripture:

*"Love your neighbor as you love yourself."* (Matthew 22:39 NCV)

Contrast that with Ruth, a widowed foreigner with every reason to walk away from her mother-in-law and rebuild her own life elsewhere. Instead she said,

"Don't ask me to leave you… I will go where you go and live where you live." (Ruth 1:16 NCV)

Two very different stories. A prince and a widow. Both of them “chose inclusion” when walking away would have been easier, more convenient, and more understandable.

That's the tension underneath that name in your phone. Inclusion was never meant to be the easy, convenient option, it was always meant to be a choice. And when you don’t respond, or reach out, you are making a choice.

THE SOLUTION

Here's the deeper issue underneath all of this. It's not a scheduling problem. You have time for the people you actually want in your life; you make time without even trying. What you don't always have is willingness. And willingness only shows up after you've dealt honestly with whatever's sitting underneath the distance.

Jesus made the standard almost uncomfortably simple:

"Do to others what you would want them to do to you." (Matthew 7:12 NCV)

If you were the name being scrolled past, wondering why nobody calls, what would you want done differently?

MY EXPERIENCE - MOM

Let me tell you about a commitment I made a long time ago. I told my myself that I'd visit her, ten hours away in Tennessee from where we lived in Florida, every month. Yes, every month. She was aging and I just wanted to be there.

Fortunately, we had a house five hours north, right on the way. So here's what it looked like. Drive five hours to house number two. Spend the night. Get up and drive five more hours to Mom's.

You want the truth? I remember calling Wendy after about three days into one of those visits and saying, "Oh my gosh, I am so ready to leave. There is literally nothing to do here."

And there wasn't, really. I'd do chores. Little projects around the house. Plant some flowers. Visit her brother, my Uncle Charlie, and sit in a cloud of her cigarette smoke and his cigar smoke, shooting pool in his garage. We'd eat. We'd laugh. I'd hear the same stories over and over, the ones I could practically tell myself by then.

But my Mom? She just loved it. So did Uncle Charlie. And I did this, almost every month, for nearly fifteen years, until Mom passed away. Uncle Charlie followed not long after.

Now? I miss those days. I live in Tennessee myself these days, and my Mom would be so happy I was finally here. But here's what I didn't expect back then.

THE PERSONAL BENEFIT TO YOURSELF

I grew by giving love away. I became more full. More full of joy. Not because the visits were exciting. They weren't. But because I was pouring into two people who needed to be included, and something about that filled me up more than it filled them.

I could tell you story after story like that one. Reaching out fills the other person, yes. But it fills you more.

Loving others as much as you love yourself. I understand now why Jesus said to do it. It's simply good for us, and for them.

God's commands aren't restrictions holding us back from a fuller life. They're the path to it. They grow us. I'm not pretending they're easy.

We're so wired toward ourselves that giving up our time for someone else's agenda feels like a loss before we even do it. But the people we've stopped calling? They miss us. And we could fill them up, if we'd just show up.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

At the end of the day, you and I have to ask ourselves honestly, who do we love the most? Jesus isn't telling you to stop loving yourself. He's simply saying, love them as much as you already love yourself.

So what do we actually do with this? I'm not suggesting a daily call. I'm not even suggesting weekly. I'm suggesting a life that includes people on purpose. Friends who will hold you accountable. Family who genuinely loves you.

And clear boundaries with anyone whose presence is truly destructive or critical, because inclusion was never meant to mean access for people determined to harm you.

PRACTICAL STEPS

Here's something practical you can do today. Open that contact list again. Find the name your thumb usually skips. This time, don't skip it. Text one honest sentence: "I've been thinking about you, and I miss having you in my life." That's it. Or just call them and say “Hey, it’s been a while, how are you doing?” You don't have to solve everything in one conversation. You just have to flip the switch back on.

WHY IT MATTERS

Here's why this matters beyond just better relationships. Every one of us was once that name, distant from God, not through one dramatic act of rebellion necessarily, but often through the slow neglect of never turning toward him. And rather than wait for us to close that distance first, he closed it himself.

"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8 NCV)

To be candid - you may not be other-centered because you are self-centered. Maybe Christ is not your Lord and Savior, convicting you about this. What are you convicted about? It’s probably what you spend your time, energy and money on. That may be the thing you are worshipping.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Here's the bottom line. Love others as much as you love yourself. If you don't actually believe that's worth doing, you simply will not do it. It's the second greatest command in life, given by Jesus himself. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Simple to say, hard to live. The deeper question is why wouldn't you? Is there something you don't like? Something that needs forgiveness? What is it?

It's worth pondering. And I believe it’s worth resolving.

GOD, convict me. Help me not blame the other. Even for me, I confess there's a name I've learned to scroll past. Someone I've stopped including, not out of hatred, but out of habit, distance, and maybe pride I haven't been honest about. Forgive me for the relationships I've let go quiet instead of fighting for. Jesus, thank you for never treating me like an inconvenience. Thank you for closing the distance between us before I ever deserved it. Give me a love like Jonathan's, a love that chooses people even when it costs something. Give me a love like Ruth's, a love that stays when leaving would be easier. Holy Spirit, bring that one name to my mind right now, the one I've quietly stopped reaching for. Give me the courage to reach out today, not because it's easy, but because you never waited for it to be easy with me. Teach me to build a life full of people, held together with wisdom, forgiveness, and love. Remind me that when I give love away, I don't lose it. I grow. I love you, God, and I want to include the people you've placed in my life the way you've included me in yours. IJNIP amen ♥️

(My Mom’s Last Christmas - 88 years old - Her birthday was December 25th)