The good times of life are even better if there is someone
there to share them with: going fishing with your dad, taking walks with your
sweetheart, playing games with your kids, or just admiring a beautiful sunset
with a friend. You can do all of these
things by yourself but having someone there to share them with adds to the
enjoyment of the experience.
We are surrounded by relationships. We have spouses, children, parents,
co-workers, and sometimes we even have relationships with our neighbors. Have you ever stopped to think how important
relationships are to our lives?
Relationships are vital to our very survival.
When you come into the world, you automatically are in one
of the most important relationships that exists: a child and his or her
mother. If you are lucky, you also have
a father right there as well. This
relationship was designed to affect your entire life. The sad truth is that occasionally this
relationship is broken almost immediately after birth and the child has to be
taken from his or her parents because the parents are not in a position to care
for the child. The good thing that comes
from this sad situation is the child is usually put up for adoption and is
often placed into an adoptive family.
So right out of the gate (so to speak), you are put into an
extremely important relationship. We
sometimes mess that up but that does not change the design God put in place or
the significance of the parent child relationship. If humans were like sea turtles and just left
their babies to fend for themselves, we would not survive as a species. A human baby cannot take care of its most
basic physical need: to feed itself. A
baby left on its own quickly perishes.
There are very basic emotional needs that are fulfilled from this
relationship as well which can be quite detrimental if left unmet.
As children grow, they become less dependent on their
parents for their survival and start to depend more on their parents to help them
mature and gain the wisdom needed to help them handle life on their own one
day. Even though the parent-child
relationship changes, it is still a foundational relationship throughout our
lives.
There are of course many other relationships that develop during
our lives. Most of us will get jobs and
form relationships with the people we work with to varying degrees of
intimacy. It would be very hard to do
almost any job without being involved with other people. If you work on a team, you must develop
relationships with these people to be effective. You can have a successful business on your
own but that is much harder than working with other people. It is a rare individual who can manage all
aspects of a business well.
Mothers who stay home to raise the kids of course have a
relationship with their children but to remain sane they also need to have
relationships with other grown women. The
more friends a mother has, the happier she is.
Even as crucial as the mother child relationship is, it needs to be
supported by other relationships.
If you are fortunate, you will meet a special someone and
marry that person. This relationship has
an even higher priority than your relationship with your parents. If you get married, that relationship is
intended to be the primary human relationship for the rest of your lives (and
yes this is true even after kids come along).
There are of course many other types of relationships you
can have with other people. The examples
given should be enough for you to see how pivotal relationships can be in your
life. All of these relationships have a
common thread: they should all be a reflection or an extension of our
relationship with God. Any relationship
should have at its core the goal of glorifying God. That is our purpose for being on the earth. So
whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of
God [1 Cor 10:31 (NET)]. To do
that we must have a strong and thriving relationship with God. The other relationships in our lives will not
be healthy if our core relationship with God is not strong and healthy.
Our devotion to God is supposed to burst forth from us to be
seen by others. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your
good deeds and praise your Father in heaven [Matt 5:16 (NIV)]. Our love for God should be a beacon to those
who do not know Him and are seeking joy and peace in their lives. This should be most evident to those with whom
we have established relationships.
Our relationships with each other are crucial to our
relationship with God. This is
especially true of our relationships with other Christians. We are told: If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a
liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love
God, whom he has not seen. And he has
given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother [1 John
4:20-21 (NIV)]. How we treat our
brothers and sisters in Christ is a reflection of what we think of God. The example given in 1 John is an extreme but
it is just as true that if we see a brother in need and do nothing to
help. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish
you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical
needs, what good is it? In the same way,
faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead – [James
2:15-17 (NIV)].
We should not take our relationships for granted. They are part of the system designed by God
for our good. These relationships help
us enjoy this life more fully and allow us to help others do the same. We need to thank God for these relationships
and ask Him how we can use them to bring Him glory. Let’s ask Him to bring us into new
relationships for the express purpose of bringing glory to Him. Many of these relationships will last
throughout all eternity.
