Relationships

A friend of mine recently hurt me very deeply, becoming cold and distant after we had been close enough to tell each other almost anything. She hurt me worse by lying about, or at least hiding, the reasons for this change. I felt I had done nothing to deserve it, I still feel that way. But I began to change one night when I was praying and, well, complaining about how unfair this was. The answer came back, "Relationships are not about justice, but love."

It stopped me dead in my tracks. I had been searching so hard to see if perhaps I had done anything wrong and, when I found nothing worthy of this treatment, I lambasted her in my mind. In truth, what I was doing was revealing I felt she owed me better for what I had done for her. My love was not unconditional; it was earned. I had been willing to give it in advance, but not willing to accept no return on it, thus making it not real love at all.

It is, thankfully, not the way God treats us. His love is pure, unearned, and eternal. Nothing we can do can increase or decrease His love for us.

I've been reading a book entitled "Relationships: A Mess Worth Making". In it, the authors say that when anything other than God is first in our lives, it makes it impossible to have the kind of relationships we were supposed to have. We can't, of ourselves, love purely, and so attempts to do so without God inevitably end in failure. Ironically, when we do have God first, we can love others more than if they were first in our lives.

I'm honestly not quite to that point yet. If I were, her rejection and dishonesty wouldn't have bothered me so much. I could have been hurt, and I had the right to be, but I wouldn't have let that hurt control me. I'd have realized that God was still, and will always be, in absolute control. He can tug gently on the strings of her heart and lead her where she should infinitely better than I ever could.

Part of my hurt was that I felt I was being rejected for no fault of mine; another part was because I thought I could help her. I had a Messiah complex. Essentially, when I got upset about her rejecting me, part of it was because I didn't trust that God was able to help her without me. God doesn't need me to help someone any more than a carpenter needs a carpenter ant to build a house. I may be called to help, but God can do whatever He wants with or without my assistance.

What it all boiled down to was that I was seeking something from my friendship with her that was more important than either God's will in that relationship or what was truly best for her. I still have what I believe are her best interests at heart, even if she and I disagree as to what those are, but my anger showed that it was not all I had in mind concerning her. I was seeking her respect, I wanted her to tell me how much I had helped her, I wanted to be extremely important to her. I didn't want a romantic relationship with her, but I wanted to be the most important person in her life and when I was rejected from being even a close friend anymore, I was hurt.

What is God's will going forward in this relationship? First, that I forgive her. Second, that I change my heart to seek what God wants in this. Third, that I be her friend as much as she will let me and trust that God will bring someone else in her life to continue to help her.

Many of our relationships have elements from this story present in them, particularly the seeking of something else aside from God's will. Selfishness and fear creep in and change the relationship from something beautiful and mutually beneficial to a struggle to get what we want, even at the expense of the other person. Examine a few of the relationships in your life. Look at areas in which you seem to get into an argument with that person and ask why you feel the way you do and what you truly want in your relationship. If God's will is not first, you can never have the type of relationship you were intended to have.