Malachi

Relationships are not designed to meet selfish needs… selflessness makes healthy relationships

So, this seems like a simple thing but really… I have noticed that this is a hard one for me to live out. While I see the imperative in God’s word to love others… I often fail to deal well when I feel left out of being loved in return… I often see my relationships as having a purpose to meet my needs. I wonder if I love people for the sake of loving and blessing them… or if it’s for the sake of getting what I need out of people. This truth came from a section in Malachi which speaks against divorce… a passage where it is clear that God’s heart for marriage was not for selfish gain. At first this passage struck me about my desire for a wife… for I need to examine my intentions in desiring the blessing a wife is. Do I want this for my own personal gain… for I see a lot of awesome blessings as the benefit of being married. In the midst of seeing the blessing it is to be married I was challenged to think to myself exactly what my motivation is in this desire… which triggered me to think of what my relationships with other people are all about. This truth should just affect committed marriage relationships… but also all relationships that I have. I want my relationships with my friends, with my family, with my eventual wife and children… to be healthy and Godly… and the only way I can contribute to making this happen is by being completely selfless. It is interesting to see through God’s word that my relationship is all about him… and then now I was humbled yesterday and today to realize that the relationships I have with others are not supposed to be about me either. I guess I have understood this before… and I might even walk it out at certain points… I learned much about this while studying psychology in college. I guess this truth just hit me like a ton of bricks these last few days because I have been wrestling through some things regarding this year and taking a bit of inventory on my life this year. The reality is that all things considered I believe I could say I am getting better at loving people… and this is encouraging to me. The thing that irks me though is that I feel rather lonely a great deal of the time… even forgotten or not cared about by others. Whether this is the reality or not is in many ways inconsequential… for in this simple truth I realize that I need to stop looking for others to meet my needs and look to Christ. His grace is sufficient… and by walking in the freedom he has given I can receive the truth of others’ love for me. When I am looking for something from others I realize that I get blinded to the ever present reality that God’s love is all that truly matters. Yeah… so this has awoken something inside me that I still don’t really understand… but I want to. I see very clearly that selfishness on my part as I look at relationships I have will be my ruin. I must love freely and selflessly if I desire to be a light to those I love… and I can do this as I trust in God’s word to faithfully speak his life to me… through other people or through his means… his grace will be enough.

To practically apply this I really want to make sure that I base my relationships from now on not on what people do for me… or what I get out of the relationships… but just in selflessness. This has made me take a step back also in how I desire a woman or a wife. It’s actually rather humbling… to realize that I must be careful not to think some woman is going to be able to be what God alone can be to me. I know this truth… I have heard it and learned it before… but it is elusive to me nonetheless. I want to do things right… and I sincerely pray that God will help me remember this truth every day of my life. I honestly feel like I have walked this out fairly well in a lot of ways… but regardless of all that I see the imperative to truly be a selfless servant toward others. I have been reading a few books that talk about sacrificing for the sake of others and it is affirming what I hear God speaking in this truth. True change and life and light will only come into this world as I lay myself down for the sake of others. So yeah… God, help me see this and live it out. By the way Mark… I gave you a few bucks on your café account so you can get yourself a coffee… love you bro.

(these are our new SBS hoodies we got this year... they say "Primary Observation = I dominated SBS 08" and then have a tree that says "Stand Firmly Rooted" and have the verse Ephesians 3.14-19 which speaks of being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.)