what are these relationships? They are relationships that have a role to play in your life. Throughout your life, as long as you are alive, these relationships are meant to remain, and they are the ones for which you must be willing to pay the price – under God – to maintain, because something about the big picture of your destiny is connected to them.

One example of destiny relationships is your prophetic connection. Another is your relationship with your parents. Yet another is your relationship with your spouse, your children, and then your relationships with strategic friends, mentors that God brings into your life – divine connections.

A man who does not invest in destiny relationships may never fulfill his destiny. Let me respectfully say this: when you see elderly people who are isolated, frustrated, and without help, some of them give excuses like, “I didn’t have the opportunity to go to school.” I’m sorry, but I disagree. You don’t need education to invest in relationships – it takes honor, discernment, and humility.

How can God give you a 40-year, 30-year, or 50-year gift, and yet no one on Earth finds you relevant enough to connect with you for destiny purposes? You must be a dangerous person then. Someone somewhere should love you enough and be willing to say, “I believe in you, and I see that you’re an asset to my life.”

I am sure God is speaking to you right now, because some of you are about to destroy destiny relationships. Some of you think that the classmate you met was just a classmate – but for some of you, there’s something connected to destiny in that relationship.

The ministry that God led you to is not just an optional place simply because you’re there. It is a destiny connection. Now let me show you what happens when we fail to discern destiny relationships. Are you ready? Let’s go to Genesis 13, picking up where we left off. We’ll start from verse 7.

Remember the story: God called Abraham, and Lot went with him. God prospered Abraham, and He also prospered Lot, who went with him. But then something began to happen. Pay attention to my message now – the Spirit of God is speaking. There was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock.

The Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling then in the land. Can you imagine? The one carrying the promise and the covenant, and the one who followed him, became so blessed that it was no longer possible to distinguish between the one carrying the covenant and the one who simply followed.

Abram said to Lot:
“Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”

Lot completely failed to discern why he was blessed. Despite this, he took advantage of the grace upon Abram. When he became prosperous, he did not guide his herdsmen to honor Abram.

It was a destiny connection that brought him blessing, and to avoid conflict, Abram said, “Let us part ways.” Listen! Never allow this to happen with destiny relationships in your life. It may happen with general relationships, or seasonal relationships, but when it comes to destiny relationships, swallow your pride – because we’re about to learn a lesson from Lot now. Are you ready? Please give this your full attention.

Abraham himself told Lot, “If you go left, I’ll go right. If you go right, I’ll go left.” Abraham was saying, “The place doesn’t matter. With what’s on me, I’ll succeed.”

But now observe the foolishness of Lot – which is also the foolishness of many people today. God led you to read this book to give you wisdom for destiny. The Bible says Lot lifted his eyes and chose the plain of the Jordan, moving eastward – a place near Sodom and Gomorrah, just before God decided to destroy them.

Strangely, after this separation, the first decision the Lord made was to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lesson: Stay with your destiny relationship. No matter the situation, swallow your pride and submit. Just because the other opportunity you’re chasing seems more attractive in terms of benefits doesn’t mean you should walk away from the grace of destiny that God gave you. Think about it!

May I tell you that there are relationships God brought you into because He knows that if you make certain decisions without them, what happened to your father will happen to you. God led you into some relationships as a binding covenant so that you could partake in blessings upon certain men.

This is true. But unfortunately, in Sodom, when Abraham came to rescue Lot, where did he find him? He didn’t find him on the outskirts where most people had moved to – Lot had moved to the very heart of Sodom. Though he remained a righteous man, he still had problems – because even if you are righteous, if your environment is corrupted, you will still suffer.

Learn this: God may connect you to a friend – that friend helps you pray, helps you fast whenever you backslide. God may show something to that friend in a dream, and they may come and say, “Brother, I had a dream, and something seems wrong with your spiritual life.” Let me tell you what Satan does when he wants to destroy people.

Please look up and learn: the first thing Satan does when he wants to attack your destiny is to identify everyone who can help you when you’re down. He will create strife between you and them, so that they leave you alone. In your pride, he will then attack you. And because there’s no one left to help you, that’s how people die, and that’s how people are destroyed.

Satan will never attack you while you’re surrounded by destiny relationships. The first thing he does is surround you with the wrong people – or remove the right people from your life. Lot should have said to Abraham: “I know there’s strife between my men and yours. Please allow me to speak to them. I can’t let you go, because I remember who I was and where I was before God brought me to you.”

He should have said, “I believe this is a destiny connection. Forgive me – let me work on it.” God knows what more I could have learned about destiny relationships. Today, doors have opened in my personal life and ministry through strategic destiny relationships and by the privilege of God’s grace. God has also used me through destiny connections to open doors for others.

Many of you here – respectfully – are on the verge of losing your lives because you have no value to anyone. Your life narrative is: “I don’t need anyone.” Be careful who you chase out of your life – you might be chasing away a man worth the next 10 years of your peace.

Go find out what happened to the disciples when they left Jesus. Jesus is not the kind of person you run away from – but they ran away, and within 72 hours, their entire lives scattered. Peter, who was becoming increasingly relevant, went back to fishing and wasted his time. When Jesus came in John 21, He said, “Children, do you have anything to eat?” Peter didn’t even recognize it was Jesus. Jesus told them to cast the net on the right side – and as soon as they did, they caught many fish…

This text is an excerpt from the book “RELATIONSHIPS: FOUNDATIONS FOR PERSONAL SUCCESS” written by KENOU LANDRY HINNOUHO.

We invite you to read the following article: “PRACTICE TRUE LOVE”.