Relationships are Fundamental

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.