Have you ever wondered why, at the very core of your being, that you have a deep-seated desire for relationships, and that for this very reason, you were born with the capacity for language to communicate with others? Relationships cannot exist in a vacuum because they take, at the very minimum, two people to build, maintain, and grow with each other, along with the power of relationships. As much as we want our relationships to be wholly fulfilling and free of conflict, we happen to be imperfect people communicating with other imperfect people, and our naturally flawed, selfish desires can get in the way of even our best intentions.
When you think about it, we were actually created for relationship. We were lovingly made by our Creator to have relationship with Him, because even God Himself, the Creator of the universe and of seasons and of atoms, decided that as beautifully complex and wonderful as these things are, He wanted you with Him to complete His ultimate masterpiece. That’s why He has given you the capacity to speak to Him, to communicate with Him, and to pray with Him because our primary, vertical relationship is with the God who made us. He even went so far as to die for you simply so that He could restore you to Him (yes, He loves you that much!).
Yet, we also tend to mess up our relationships – both with Him and with each other. It’s during these times that we wish we could just live on a remote desert island with no one around, and life would be just peachy. Or, would it? Even prisoners who are put into solitary confinement consider this to be the worst form of punishment, to the point where they begin losing their grip on sanity and can even become hopelessly depressed. Think, too, about the havoc that was wreaked during COVID when people were isolated at home. While technology helped bridge the gap, it simply was – and still is – a substandard substitute for the real thing. Anxiety rose, depression rose, and addiction rose while at the same time our social skills suffered and our relationships became fraught with difficulties. Simply put, we missed people, and it adversely affected our mental health.
So what to do? We cannot get around having relationships because we are inherently built to be social creatures. Introverts and extroverts alike need connection, but sometimes we just don’t know how. Many times, we look at our relationships and ask ourselves, “How did we even get here, and what in the world can we do to change it?” It’s not like we purposefully and consciously tried to sabotage our relationship with our spouse, or our kids, or our coworkers. It’s not like we woke up one morning and decided to harm the people that mean the most to us, and yet sometimes, most of the time, we unfortunately do just that. Our words, our body language, our tone, and our facial expressions betray us, and what lies in our hearts are unfortunately spoken by that pesky, untamed tongue that we haven’t figured out how to control.
Most importantly, since our primary relationship with God directly affects our secondary relationship with others, that bent or broken connection with Him rolls downhill to everyone else in our lives, and then everything inevitably becomes unbalanced – our spiritual life, our emotions, our thoughts, even our physical health. Think about the times when you were up all night thinking about an argument, which not only made you thoroughly irritable and grumpy the next day, but you couldn’t stop thinking about what was said or what you wish you had said. You were exhausted and called in sick to work. You yelled at your kids, or that poor cashier at the grocery store. You may have blasted that elderly grandmother in front of you with that freakishly loud car horn of yours because she didn’t put on her right-turn signal. Maybe you even blamed God for it all because you felt like He should do something about it if He actually cared about you.
Well, He actually does care about your relationship and wellbeing. He wants to see you come back into a better relationship with Him and with the people He has surrounded you with. He created marriage and families to see them succeed. He asked us to create communities because that’s how we survive and thrive here on earth. His Rock of relationship is the foundation for living our best lives with each other.
Consider nearly every married couple who has the very best of intentions when they place their carefully chosen rings upon their spouse’s hand. They have hopes and dreams that they will gracefully grow old together. They have the highest aspirations for their 2.5 children and will even research the latest, nouveau child-rearing practices to ensure they have the perfect children. Yet, what people neglect to account for is their own personal failings and their own selfish desires. They slowly forget to put God first, and when they neglect the power of relationships, the weeds of life begin to choke out their carefully tended garden of love, trust, and commitment.
That’s why we must be very intentional about developing healthy, positive relationships with Him and with each other. We understand that sometimes we can get in our own way, and we sometimes don’t know how to dig ourselves out of our own hole that we created. We want desperately to be better, to communicate better, to love better, and going to people who can assist you – whether it’s a pastor, a counselor, or a friend – who can provide you with God-honoring tools for your first step to mending those fractured fences. God wants this for us. God wants this for you.
Don’t waste another minute in restoring, healing, and extending grace to yourselves and to others, for tomorrow is not promised. Most importantly, it’s never too late to turn back towards God who will welcome you with open, comforting arms. He’s missed you, and He is waiting with His long-suffering bated breath to hear from you, to talk with you, and to restore the relationships that He has given you, especially the one with Himself.