Faith in Relationships and God, Part 2

I suppose this is where the fun begins.

God isn’t like the rest of us.  Jesus wasn’t a guy who just didn’t get it.  If anything, he showed that he understood us so much better than we understood ourselves.  He proved that he loved the people he was with even though he knew their past, he knew their shame, and he certainly knew their hearts.

There is no deceiving God, no way to hide, no way to hurt; he always knows where you are, how you feel, and how to take care of you.

He is the only being in the whole of existence who sees you for who you really are, all the vulnerabilities, all the hurts, all the past mistakes, all the good, all the dreams, the hopes, the desires.  He sees it all and loves it.  More specifically, he loves you.

He. Loves. You.

Whether you reject him or embrace him, he will always be just a breath away.  He will not hurt you, and you cannot disappoint him.  There is nothing you can do to make him go away.

But he doesn’t invade your life either.  He allows you to make your own decisions and waits patiently for you.  He is basically exactly what we are all looking for and need in a relationship.

Might seem too good to be true, but keep in mind I mentioned what we needed in a relationship and not what we wanted.  They are incredibly different things.  And oftentimes confused for each other.

But think about it.  One of the greatest needs humanity has it to feel love and acceptance, and to have a sense of belonging.  It makes them feel safe, and it makes them feel important.  I think in our core, we all have a deep need to be significant.

And we are significant.  We are worthy of being loved.

To use an “overused” verse from John 3

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”

The point is, you are loved.

But what does that have to do with Faith in God?

Well, to really have faith in someone you have to trust them.  I personally find it impossible to truly trust someone without knowing they actually care about me and my well-being.  So, I felt that it was important to establish that God does actually care.

This is where it gets tricky.

See, I have found over the years that for me to trust others, I need to be trustworthy myself.  I need to exhibit the qualities that I desire to see in other people (within reason).  If I want my wife to prove she is trustworthy I must also be willing to put forth the effort in doing the same.  It is just the natural course of relationships from my own experience.

My relationship with God isn’t really any different.   There is still ebb and flow, give and take, and a need to show trust and be trusted.

This gets incredibly difficult when things don’t always go the way we expect.  Admittedly, there are days when I have felt that God betrayed me or hurt me on purpose, but I have to remember that despite how I feel, the reality is that God doesn’t do anything without purpose, without reason.  I, in my finite mind, cannot always understand the movements of an infinite being.

That doesn’t really make it easy.  If anything it makes it more difficult.  But I find that if I can shut down my pride for a few minutes then maybe I will begin to see that, as Solomon put it, “There is a season for everything.”  Sometimes we have to wait; sometimes we have to weather a storm; sometimes we have to make it through the tougher parts of life to get a little stronger so we can go a little further; and sometimes things are gravy.

Just like a relationship with another person.

I feel like, ultimately, having faith in another person, and having faith in God when it comes to relationships is really no different.

Furthermore, I would argue that they are actually intimately intertwined.

My relationship with God actually does affect my relationship with my wife and with others.  If I am being adamant in speaking with God, meditating on who he is, what he has done for me, and what he has to say both in scripture and in my own personal time with him then I find that my relationships with other improve immensely from it.

But when I neglect to do those things my relationships with others stagnate, I tend to be more irritable than usual and poor attitudes slowly creep into my core.

And I don’t want that.

I don’t want that at all.

Grace and Peace.

p.s.  Dear friend,  I hope this has helped you even a little bit.  If you want to discuss this more in person you are more than welcome to come find me.  You know where I live.  :)

Faith in Relationships and God, Part 1

I was asked by a friend to write out my thoughts on faith and how it plays out in relationships and with God.  I’ve been mulling over it for about a week now, and I’m still not entirely sure I’ve gotten all my thoughts straightened out but I thought now might be a good time to start the writing process and see where the journey takes us.  Without further ado:

I guess the first thing that needs to be addressed what the definition of the word faith since it will be the basis for the rest of the post.  There are few different points under the faith definition but I am going to just use the two points that I think are reflected at the heart of the question:

Faith [feyth]

1.       Confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.

2.       Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

That is what we are really talking about here when we talk about faith in relationships:  A showing of trust and confidence in the face of uncertainty or lack of proof.

I think I want to start with faith in relationships.  I feel that perhaps this will be the easier of the two to address and I want to make sure my thoughts have worked themselves out a little more before I talk about faith in God.

Throughout life every human experiences a series of relationships.  Every encounter with another human or any living creature develops a form of relationship.  Whether it is an acquaintanceship with a co-worker, an affection for a pet, or love for a significant other, we are all in some form of relationship.  Each of these relationships tell a little bit about who we are as people.  How we react to different personalities, what we reveal to others at differing levels of intimacy, and how we handle conflict (perhaps the most revealing of all).  Every relationship requires some semblance of trust that the person you are interacting with is not some psychopath who is going to slit your throat when you aren’t looking (although we all know there are other ways to be much more hurtful).  The more intimate you get with another, the more faith or trust is required until eventually you get to the point where you are completely vulnerable to the other person.

When you reach that point there is no turning back.

And it is scary.

And dangerous.

But it is also freeing.

I can’t even begin to mention the times when I have been so thankful that I can really and truly be myself around my wife.  It is such a blessing to be in such a relationship with her that I can come home and not feel the need to “wear my armor” so to speak, and she has said the same to me on a number of occasions.  It is a beautiful thing to be a part of.  But being in such a relationship has the potential for some of the deepest wounds.  One small word, one phrase, one little thing is all it takes and that trust gets completely destroyed.

Many times when things like that happen, it isn’t even meant.  It is just something that was said or done in the heat of the moment.  And it happens too many times to too many people.

And sometimes those people never trust again.  They never open up because their heart is too damaged, too wounded, and they are too scared.  And that fear keeps them from opening up again which is what really needs to happen if they are ever going to heal.

The problem, of course, is that we are all people.  There is not a single perfect being out there.  Not a single individual who will take all of who you are and at some point not hurt you.  It is in our nature.  I deeply love my wife, and I know she trusts me to take care of her both emotionally and physically.  She trusts me to not use the secrets that she has kept to herself until she shared them with me against her.  She trusts me to keep those same secrets to myself.  She trusts me to respect her wishes, and she certainly trusts me to have fidelity in our relationship with each other.

And I trust her to do the same. 

It’s taken four years to get to that point, and it has been a painful process at times because despite our trust in each other, we don’t always pull through like we should. 

Because people are broken.

But we have to keep removing callouses that develop around our hearts or we will get to the point where we don’t love each other any longer.  And I don’t mean that in the sense of the emotional experience of love.  I mean the commitment and choice to love.  The act of putting the other before self, of showing patience and kindness, of getting angry at the injustice of how someone treated the other, or keeping complaints to yourself because the only reason you’re aggravated is because it is inconvenient to you.

It is a two way street, and it requires balance and finesse.

That’s why so many people will spend a lifetime toughing out the imbalance until they find it.

That’s why so many people give up on something so beautiful, because they don’t realize they can actually work through it if they wanted to.  They just don’t want to because it hurts in the now.

But we are worth so much more than this.

Grace and Peace.  Part 2 coming up Wed.