Redeemed for Relationship

I’m finding myself caught in the tension again, between the life that I say I want and my sin that I keep giving into.

I’m feeling it when I’m in a crowd of people and want to know them all and yet want to only know those whom I already know.

I’m feeling it when new faces are potential life-long friends but also a laying aside of self.

My soul, our souls, seem caught in this struggle.  We desperately want a depth of relationship in which we are known and know and yet we refuse the getting there, or at least the learning how to get there.

And I’m feeling it oh so evidently as I’m in the new places: new school, new work, new church.  

An entering into a classroom gives the potential of connecting with new people, but I sit where I always sit: next to those whom I already know.  

It seems we’re all longing for connection.  I’ve heard myself say it.  And yet, when it comes down to it, I choose my own comfort, safety, and affirmation above the chance to really know someone.

It’s so much easier to be with those who know you as you are and already accept you.  But to start again?

It means discomfort.

It means awkwardness.

It means not knowing what someone really thinks of you.

It means the chance that you will be rejected; that someone will see into your heart and run away.  Or worse, the surface level issues will be enough to drive them away.

It means not knowing how to communicate who you really are.

It means seeing your inability to love well, to listen, to serve.

It means dying; dying to your own comfort and your own wants.

It means staring your fallen, broken self in the face and seeing that you cannot do relationships well.

What hope have we in relationships when this is where our feet so often land?

And then the words that remind...

That God is a God of restoration; that we are broken to be built up again.

That God uses relationship to show His character to the world.

And hope is rising.

It’s rising as I’m standing with my sisters hearing words of truth poured out before our Father: that He has used us in each other’s lives to sanctify.  He has used us to rub each other sharp.  And I know that people have looked at us and seen Jesus.

It’s rising as I sing and together we make a three part harmony.  And I am blessed that together we have made something beautiful.

It’s rising as we’re reminded of God’s image displayed in marriage and how 2 fallen individuals must learn to die each day in order to live out the image of God together.

And the hope that comes?  

It’s in the realization that God has used me, us, in our very broken state.  The beauty that has already happened was not out of our perfection, but out of His grace.  

And of course.

Isn’t that the Gospel? 

That God restored us to Himself while we were yet sinners?  Unified relationship offered despite our insufficiencies.  

In the same way, He is aware of our inabilities, insecurities, selfishness, and pride and still chooses to use us to proclaim His character to the world around us.

So when we seek out relationship with someone else, putting ourselves on the line, we are reflecting the very heart of Jesus, who died despite the fact that many would reject Him.  And as we seek more and more unity with another, we are reflecting His desire for us to become more and more unified with Him.

And my heart overflows with thankfulness that it’s in the very brokenness that God is at work restoring, redeeming, and reconciling.