Relationships – Day 7

Adam and Eve were His representatives who had to embark on an earthly journey together, fulfilling the task God gave them. Although He was always present, two people still needed each other for the journey.

In his book, 11 Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Be Without (p. 19), Leonard Sweet expresses this truth in another way: “The joy is not in the journey; it’s in the relationships; it’s where I meet you, in Christ. It is not about ‘me becoming we’, it’s about us becoming Him.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9 confirms this truth: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour.” The author gives reasons for his statement: If they fall, the one can lift up his companion; one alone stays cold, but two can keep each other warm; one can be overpowered by another, but two can withstand him. He then brings it all together when he says in verse 12: “A threefold cord is not easily broken”. Only God’s involvement in our relationships strengthens the cord of relationships.

In addition to the mentioned benefits, you and I need people in our lives to challenge us out of our comfort zones. Their inputs enable us to pull down the fences of opinions, traditions, tunnel vision and self-righteousness so that we can think anew and differently. And, in the process we will learn to know God from a different perspective and discover truth that loosens and sets us free.

Every believer, in fact every human being, needs guides, mentors, guards and wise people to assist them on their journeys and to be present when they eventually reach their destinations.