Relationships are, by nature, insecure footings to base our confidence in, but this is what humans naturally do. Liable to break at any given moment, two people with different upbringings, thought patterns, personalities and communication styles are bound to face difficulties. When traumas, scars, trust issues, sins, addictions, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and the struggles of life compound the challenges, it may seem that relationships are doomed to fail. Some people give up entirely, some people settle for a relationship based on the wrong things, and others search their whole life for their “soul mate.”
But what if this need for human relationships we all have isn’t supposed to be our main focus? What if we could think of our relationships as a gift from God for this life? Like a beautiful and delicious dessert, a relationship that works well can be a great blessing in life. When a relationship struggles, if we can simply view it as a mediocre dessert that needs work, then we can be extra thankful that our main meal is keeping us nourished.
The world has it backwards, and before surrendering my life to Christ, I did too. When your life is built on a person, you give that person a lot of power over you. They can make you feel confident and loved or they can make you feel insecure and discarded, and if you have the unfortunate situation to be in relationship with someone with narcissistic tendencies, you might feel stuck in a spinning cycle of love bombing (idealization), devaluation, discarding, and then re-engagement (hoovering) on repeat, and this merry-go-round just keeps going faster and faster as time goes on until you either give up and get off the ride, are destroyed in the chaos, or a combination of both.
When your focus is on a relationship with a broken human (which we all are), your identity, happiness, feeling of safety or lack of, and viewpoint on the world is completely contigent on this person…. who God gave you to be your dessert.
If your main meal is your focus, though, then regardless of how your relationship is going or not going, you can be content in all things. We were created to be in relationship with our Heavenly Father, God Almighty, FIRST, and this is how we’ve got things mixed up. We were created to NEED relationship, because we are not complete without God. As we make life choices, we get to choose who we try to fill that relentless need with, and humans seem like a logical choice since they’re the most like we are, plus we can SEE them right in front of us. Through our faith in what we can’t see, we get to learn that we all fall short of reflecting God, and that the closer we get to be in relationship with God, the more accurate our reflection of him in us is.
By living with faith in Jesus, we begin to experience the peace, joy and hope of communing with Christ as our main meal, and we get to enjoy the trust, consistency and security that no other human can give us. When we focus on the main meal first, we can appreciate dessert for what it is, and then we can be thankful whether we have an amazing one, a mediocre one, or none at all.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. – Psalms 23:5-6 NIV
(Dedicated to Perry, who is the best flan I can ever imagine! Thanks for supporting my choice to always put Jesus first.)