Unfortunately, we can’t step outside of “Relationship” as a whole in order to get the view from the outside looking in. Relationship is inseparably central to who we are. We cannot remove ourselves from relationship.
Relationship is central to who God is and who we are
The first relationship was not God and Adam; or even God and the angels - but God and God (John 1:1). Relationship has always existed within the Trinity. God is love - so God is relationship.
That means that relationship has existed from eternity and will exist to eternity. It has always existed and will always exist. And in the meantime its going to drive us nuts! Henry Kissinger said "No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy"!
God created us to be in relationship with each other, but to draw life only from our relationship with Him.
God’s Design
God designed a beautiful relationship economy. It works like this….
We have deep relational needs, and we know (because He promised us!) that ALL of our needs are going to be met by God. As we live in that truth and trust Him to fill our relationship needs, we can then relate to each other in a selfless way – not to get what we need for ourselves, but to share what we have with others.
As Paul wrote in Philippians 2:4, “Let each of you esteem and look upon and be concerned for not his own interests but also each for the interests of others.”
Sounds great doesn’t it?
But because of the condition of this world, indwelling sin and our flesh, all of us have gotten it backwards at times.
It sometimes looks like this…
We live here on earth, are very aware of the needs that we have for love, respect, acceptance, significance, protection. And we look around at all of these other people – and we think to ourselves “look at all of these people who can meet my needs” – I just need to find ways [attract / manipulate / coerce] to get them into doing so.
And as long as these other people are doing a good job of meeting my needs, then things are good and my relationship with God is good. If other people aren’t doing a good job of meeting my needs, then I’m angry at God, depressed, God is failing me.
We don’t always experience the freedom that God has given us in our human relationships. Instead our whole relationship experience can be a prison.
Meet Ruth
Ruth is a book that reminds us of the freedom that God intends for us experience in our relationships.
This Old Testament woman from Moab reminds us that we can be courageous, adventurous, free-wheeling, generous, risk-takers in our relationships because we are playing with house money. God has already promised to meet all of our needs.
We’re along for the ride. All we have to concern ourselves with is loving God and freely loving the people He has put around us.
Ruth's Background (1100 BC)
During a severe famine in Bethlehem a man named Elimelech (from the tribe of Judah) took his wife Naomi and their two sons (Mahlon and Chilion) to Moab in search for greener pastures.
When they arrived in Moab Elimelech died but Naomi stayed in Moab with her sons. Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women (Ruth and Orpah) and together they lived in Moab for 10 years. But then both of Naomi’s sons both died.
Naomi had followed her husband from her home (Bethlehem) because things were bad, but now she was in worse shape than ever. She had a major problem because she and Elimelech had no more living sons and thus she was cut off from his inheritance. Both of her sons died before they could have any sons of their own. She was broke and had no money coming to her.
Naomi had gone from a husband and sons and financial security to a future that was going to consist of living off of any charity she could gleen.
After a time famine was getting better in Bethlehem so Naomi decided to return. Ruth and Orpah both initially started off with her.
Orpah and Ruth Decide
Naomi tried to convince them to return home for their best interest.
She tried to rationalize with them: “Your family is in Moab”, “You can get married again and have children”. You can still have a future. Why would you want to go with me to a new land. I have nothing to give you. I don’t have any more sons for you to marry.
She raised some good points. Ruth and Orpah were certainly not “obligated” to continue to take care of Naomi. And Naomi had nothing left to offer them. Their family, gods and entire culture was in Moab. They could start over.
After thinking about it, Orpah gave her a tearful kiss goodbye and went home. Ruth, however made a very brave statement.
Ruth 1 vs 16-18
And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you.
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said no more.
Orpah’s response and Ruth’s response
Was Orpah wrong in the decision that she made? She protected herself and her future. Her familial contract with Naomi had been fulfilled.
Ruth responded to her relationship with Naomi as a covenant. Even though Naomi’s family could no longer provide what she hoped for, she still was going to stick with her - dedicate her life to caring for an old women with no prospects.
Your God will be My God. Ruth had obviously heard about the goodness of the God of Israel from Naomi. Maybe in that moment she had faith in Naomi’s God than Naomi did.
Regardless, it was a beautiful selfless act. Ruth’s decision did not take into consideration her own future plans and needs. Maybe she could start over and have another family – have another chance for wealth and comfort. She was at risk of kissing all of that goodbye. The relationship that God put in front of her wasn’t a husband. It wasn’t even a man! And as a woman it wasn’t a woman that could bear her a husband!!
Ruth did not let fear or her concerns for her own needs make her decision for her.
I long for that freedom.
I long to make decisions in life without having to worry about taking care of myself.
This World and its Win-Win Mentality
Our society doesn’t do too well with true selflessness and self-forgetfulness, but we’ve tried to compromise with concepts Win-Win relationships.
Steven Covey – business/personal enrichment term. I can do what is good for you, and still make sure that my needs taken care of.
Win-win may be good for business, but it’s not what God intended for relationships. It still makes us focus on getting our own needs get met. It robs us of freedom – the freedom to make decisions, enter relationships, and treat each other the way we would if we didn’t have to worry about protecting ourselves and taking care of ourselves.
- What would you do if you knew that all of your needs were going to be met?
- How would you treat people if you didn’t have to worry about protecting yourself?
- What would our relationships look like if we decided to say, I’m going to make sure that you win. God is taking care of me.?
I want to:
o Be more compassionate in the pain that people around me experience
o Give more of my time when it's needed
o Be as excited about other's successes as I am about my own
o Be a more dependable friend
o Give more money where it is needed
I long for my decisions to not be made out of fear of self protection because I know that there is FREEDOM there.
I want to be able to live out of a forgetfulness of my own needs – knowing that God will supply my needs because I am abiding in Him. I long for the freedom and beauty that I see in Ruth’s decision to follow God, put her own needs aside and put Naomi’s needs above her own.
Relationship can only be experienced in the present
In Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis using a conversation from an demon experienced in tempting to a young protégé tempter, encourages the young demon to keep the young human man assigned to him focused on the past; or on the hope or dread of the future. Whatever he does, keep his mind off of the present.
Why? According to Lewis, because God’s aim is that we focus on two things: 1. Eternity itself, and 2. to the point of time that is called the Present – because the Present is the point at which time meets eternity. We can experience eternity in the present.
We humans live constrained by time, so the present is the point where eternity meets us in our time. Giving too much energy to the past can be paralyzing and unhealthy. Being affixed on the future is even worse because a focus on the future is to be concerned with unrealities. If we are focusing on the future we are focused on something that doesn’t even exist.
Obviously, relationship can only be experienced in the present. It is impossible for us to really experience freedom in our relationships if we are fixated on the past. Especially if we have had a painful relationship past, we bring a lot of baggage that disables us from healthy relationship.
Likewise if our focus is fixated on the future (which doesn’t exist) we cannot respond with the love that Ruth showed to Naomi. Our response will be more like Orpah.
The enemy wants us to focus either on the past or the future, and in that, cut us off from relationship. If we are not living in the present moment (confident that Jesus is taking care of our needs), with our eyes fixed on eternity, our relationships will suffer.
Conclusion
Orpah was unable to effectively be in relationship with Naomi because her concern was on the past and future.
I know that I miss out sometimes too. Freedom is what Jesus came to give us. We possess it but we can choose fear or self-protection instead.
Jesus is teaching me how free I really am. He wants me to experience my freedom every moment. ¶ 9:30 AM 0 comments
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
HUMMINGBIRD
Bruce Hogarth from GMI was leading our discussions on rest, authenticity and passion throughout the weekend and the Sunday morning discussion was on how to practically live out those things in our lives. We were in this great room that had 18 foot ceilings and at the top of the ceiling there were a couple of skylights. As Bruce was talking a little hummingbird flew in the door that we had open and pretty quickly realized that it had taken a wrong turn on its journey for the day. The hummingbird started semi-frantically flying into some of the windows trying to get back to what was familiar. Through this, Bruce kept teaching. After trying all of the windows, the trapped hummingbird flew up to the skylights to try to escape. This took place over about 10 minutes and the whole time, Bruce kept teaching about how to live out of rest. We were all watching Bruce and the bird at the same time. Finally, the bird exhausted itself and slowly fell to the floor. One of guys gently picked it up and took it outside.
At that point, all of us guys just looked at each other for a moment and laughed at God’s perfectly timed gift. I think that the vision of that hummingbird up the skylight beating its wings a million miles and hour and banging its beak against the glass will be forever burned in my mind.
BIRD HAD TO STOP FLYING AROUND BEFORE IT COULD BE RESCUED
We knew that it was pointless to try to rescue the hummingbird until it stopped trying to escape us. What are some of the reasons we keep us beating our wings and banging our heads instead of falling into God’s care?
FRANTIC ACTIVITY
If you are like me, you spend a lot of time in a flurry of activity or (for you “peacefuls”) maybe you sometimes feel anxious about not being active enough. I personally do both.
It’s hard for me to stop my frantic pace of activity. When you stop your frantic pace, you have to be honest about your own needfulness (neediness). It’s uncomfortable. God’s passionate pursuit of us is uncomfortable sometimes.
RESIST / PASSION IS UNCOMFORTABLE / ITS POWERFUL
One of the reasons that its hard is that it’s not just about giving a certain situation to God to fix. Its about letting go of all our little distractions and the things that we busy our mind with. And letting go of issues that we’ve allowed to own us and become too big. God doesn’t just fix a situation for us in a vacuum and then set us on our way. He desires that His passion consume us and that we receive healing at the deepest level.
When we resist His rest, we resist His Passion. God’s passion for us is a very powerful, sometimes scary thing.
ANNE LAMOTT
Anne is unique Christian writer. She probably won’t be invited to give the graduation speech at many Christian colleges.
(read passage)
Anne is not who most in the church would see as a pillar of the faith, but our great spiritual fathers and mothers were not normally accepted by the religious people. We need to take an honest look at the Biblical heroes and see who they really were.
NOAH
In Genesis 6, God chose Noah to take the most important role of his time. Noah’s passion in life was God and verse 9 of Chapter 6 sums it up by saying that Noah walked with God which is really what this Christian life thing is really all about. I don’t need to go through the story of Noah and the ark.
We know he was a man of incredible passion for God. We know he was obedient in the face of criticism. And we know that when the earth dried up and he left the ark he planted a vineyard, drank the wine and ended up drunk and naked in his tent. Let’s get this guy a seminary application!
When we need the kind of help and rescue that only God can provide, we sometimes continue to struggle on out of fear that the whole thing will collapse around us and we will be exposed.
PHARISEES
In scripture, the great men and women of the faith had their great moral failures exposed for all to see. It was the Pharisees who were so petrified of having their sin exposed. That’s why Jesus was such a threat. The Pharisees, like me, were afraid of being exposed.
We resist God’s passion because it’s difficult, as Bruce says, to come out from behind the bush.
Our shame doesn’t calculate into God’s equation though – He’s already dealt with it, so he keeps coming at us, asking us to be real with Him.
UNPOLISHEDNESS
God’s passion seeks the real and authentic. He draws close to our unpolishedness and least “shiny places” and often times that is exactly where he meets us. He views us according to our heart, which as Christians we know He has made pure, regardless if we have our life together or if it is falling apart.
OUR PASSION IS CHRIST
Noah’s passion according to scripture was God and he was in a very small minority of one. Scripture implies that he was the only person who was walking with God at the time. Noah’s passion wasn’t to build a boat or anything else. He didn’t ask, “What is my passion to do on this earth?” He was committed to his passion for God, and that led him to build the ark.
I’ve learned over the past 3.5 years of struggling with my own career that you can’t discover you passion by taking a personality test. Or by talking to people. Our passion as Christians is Christ and our only course of action is to in our imperfection throw ourselves into His passion for us and let him lead us toward whatever He has planned for us.
If you are not sure what to do with your life, pursue intimacy with God. I know that is a frustrating answer – and I know that because I am kind of there. God has led me out of one thing and I am still seeking him on the next step.
BALANCE
That can look pretty unbalanced at times. 100% Committed to Job Search.
Balance is a natural enemy of passion.
(read passage)
HERSCHEL WALKER
A deep passion requires that your life is unbalanced in that direction. Herschel Walker, the best running back ever at UGA, who carried the team to a national championship in 1980 and was the Heisman trophy winner 1982. As a kid was the family runt, was pudgy, had a speech impediment, and wasn’t even considered a natural athlete.
At age 12, however, he began a crash exercise program. Over the next year, he did 100,000 push-ups, 100,000 sit-ups and sprinted thousands of miles. All through his football career which ended in 1997, he maintained a training regime that included 2,000 push-ups, 3,000 sit-ups, 1500 pull-ups, 1000 dips DAILY.
That kind of passion for football and that type of commitment to training creates a healthy imbalance in life that the passion requires. “Your exercise is good but shouldn’t you balance it more?”
God doesn’t want us to worry about finding time for Him in the midst of our business. He asks us to be immersed and unbalanced in Him and allow Him to show us how to spend our time.
That’s what Jesus meant in Matt 10:34-39.
STOP RESISTING
Followers of Jesus have their PASSION already decided and its not a matter of balancing several priorities but to stop resisting. Let the cat in. Allow ourselves to come out from behind the bush. Let God pour His powerful Passion on us.
