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)
