The God of Relationship

It is interesting that after God created the first man, the Bible began with relationship.  It demonstrated that God is a God of relationship.  As a result He loves relationship as well as fellowship.

God looks for relationship and fellowship.  He loves relationship and yearns for it. His actions are mostly seen and understood through the eyes of relationship.  Notice how he related with humanity through Adam. Gen 3:8.   Note how He connected with the human race through Noah.  Gen 6:13.Also then how He interconnected with the entire humankind through Abraham. Gen 12;3.

This is because in relationship and fellowship, God finds fulfillment.  It is in relationship, He finds satisfaction.  And it is in relationship He finds a sense of accomplishment.

It is therefore little wonder that, humans not unlike God, craves relationship and fellowship. Both relationship and fellowship are at the heart of every human interaction in life.  The reason none has been found to live alone and desire to continue to do so.

Incidentally, companionship with humankind is the fundamental essence of relationship and fellowship with God and among humankind.

The plants and animals God created were very good on inspection.  But God did not enjoy mutual relationship with the plants and animals.  And so, he created Adam--a human person with whom He can relate.

With the creation of a human person, whom He created after “his own image and likeness”, God found relationship which He could not find anywhere else, not in Angels and Spirits. 

So, we have relationship woven through the lines of the first book of the Bible.  And this is the common thread that runs through the entire books of the Holy Scriptures.

In other words, before human persons ever thought about coming together in relationship with themselves and with their God, God did.  God was the first to   bend backwards to do so. 

So the issue of relationship has, from the beginning of creation, ever been with us. From there grew the love relationship, marriage relationship, family relationship and its various branches.  Nations are now seeing the need for good cordial relationship between each other and among themselves. 

There’s a crying need for human bonding wherever we turn.

There is power in human bonding.  Few things are like it.  God knew it. Mt 18:19.  Humans also knew it.  It is when humans bond in unity that “mountains” move. Humans took advantage of it when they built the first ever skyscraper as we see in Gen 11. The business-world now talks gladly about synergy.  It’s all about the power and clout of human interconnectedness and bonding.

People are now realizing by the day that ‘I cannot do it alone’, ‘you cannot do it alone’.  What’s the bottom line?  We need each other.  We need each other to survive--literally.  We need each other to “succeed”.  We need each other to make it.  And we need each other to make things really happen.

Only cordial, pleasant and satisfying relationships can make that possible. 

It was in pursuance of relationship that Eve was created--for Adam.  At creation, the animals fulfilled their roles in the life of Adam.  They kept good companies with Adam.  They kept the environment of the Garden of Eden lively.  But God did not see any of these animals as “suitable” companions for Adam.  As a result, God saw the need for the creation of another human species.  Thus we see that the concept of relationship was at the core of Eve’s creation for Adam.

Over the ages we have seen how human civilization has introduced unthinkable complexity into this relationship. 

The bad news is that these complexities have unleashed avoidable pain upon innocent lives, simply because they entered into a relationship.  The good news is that humans themselves have been able to manage, to an astonishing extent, the various situations with incredible ability.

We have in mind here, the love relationship.  How can we or how do we improve our love relationships? 

People go into relationship for different reasons. Some of these reasons may be more than one, two or three.  Some people bring these expectations with them into the relationship which could become a burden to the relationship.  These expectations could be one-sided and seek to gratify only one partner in the relationship.  if such expectations do not benefit the two parties in the relationship, those expectations are self-centered and could have the potential of weighing down the relationship or slow down its growth.

This shouldn’t be so.  An expectation should be of mutual benefit to foster the health 

and wellbeing of a relationship.  That is when such expectations could be judged realistic.  

(To be continued)