Christian Living

RELATIONSHIPS REVEALED

by Andre Lee
04/24/18
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WHAT YOU CAN’T GET ELSEWHERE

I’m going to hammer myself and talk about a part of my life that might actually be none of your business. But if it will help reveal a mystery of God, I’m willing to do it.

There is a very famous portion of scripture in the Bible that is preached about constantly: the story of the three Hebrew boys that were thrown into the burning furnace to be killed by the king of Babylon (Daniel Chapter 3). In this account of scripture, three Hebrew boys who had been captured and taken to Babylon along with the rest of their people, were commanded to bow down and worship a statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. The Hebrew boys refused to do it because they worshipped God and God alone. The king threatened them and said if they continued to refuse to bow to the statue, he would throw them into a large furnace and burn them alive. This did not move the Hebrew boys, they still refused to bow to anything or anyone but God. So the king, true to his threat, had them thrown into the furnace. However, as the story goes, the Hebrew boys did not burn up, in fact, they came out completely untouched because Christ was with them in the fire.

What stands out the most to me in this scripture, and something that is mostly overlooked when people read it, is that while God delivered them from the fire, God was not the only one offering them deliverance from the fire- The king was too. The king told them they could be saved from the fire if they bowed to him. They had options. They could choose to be delivered by God or the king (for different prices of course, but for now that’s another road). The real point of this story is that God’s offer for deliverance didn’t come until after they were thrown into to the fire. God had to watch them pass up on other offers for deliverance before He stepped in. And this is where the base of my story lies…

God deliberately watched them settle for not getting their need met, because he was revealing to us the foundation of a relationship- with Him or with anybody else for that matter. And that foundation is this: A relationship is only as strong as what you won’t do to meet your own needs. That you would rather suffer from the emptiness of not getting something than to step out of the relationship to get it. Not to say that you should never do anything to take care of yourself, but there is a limit to what you will do, usually created by the value you place on your interest in the other person; feeling like you got a prize because of who they are, how they walk, talk, think, their likes, dislikes, and dispositions. Something that makes the act of simply obtaining them a prize and you wouldn't violate it. This is how God evaluates relationships, here's why:

If the only thing that keeps you stuck to me is whether or not you’re getting your needs met, then anything or anyone who can provide for your needs can have you. The uniqueness of our relationship lies only in me doing something that someone else isn’t. This means that if the roles reverse, and the other person starts doing something that I’m not, he can take you from me, pushing me to be in constant performance mode all the time so I don’t risk you stepping away from me or violating our relationship to get your needs met. So God undercut all of this with this scripture, by inferring a very provocative question: What draws you to me outside of my performance? What about me do you see that can’t be affected by my provision, So that my failure to perform doesn’t make me replaceable? Is there a uniqueness about me that captivates you, that another person couldn’t give to you no matter how well they preformed? If our relationship is need and performance based, there’s nothing between us that you couldn’t get, elsewhere, and you show me that every day.

The harsh reality is, this can only be proven in problems. Only when there’s a need being created by circumstances can a person prove that they are infatuated by more than need provision. Which is why God had to let them be in thrown into the fire before He rescued them, at that point, He knew that they would rather suffer than to make God feel as though He wasn’t enough.

Unfortunately, God revealed this to me through my own history of relationships. I had a need deep inside that I couldn’t really articulate or even understand. It was only through looking back that I remember a young woman I was dating off and on for seven years. She wasn’t really as in to me as I was into her, so she often left me alone for long periods of times (like months and years between dating episodes). During those times when she would disappear out of my life, I refused talk to anyone else, I refused to date anyone else, I allowed myself to be alone and even lonely, in total longing, but refusing to have my relational needs met by anyone but her. Even to the point where (and forgive me for this) I had other women over my house, stripping, ready to engage in the act, and I would send them away, because if the woman I was longing for didn’t do it, I didn’t want it.

I had demonstrated what God desired in this scripture. And although in my case it was Idolatry, the revelation was there: to be connected beyond performance. Since I displayed it (in one of the only areas of my life I displayed it), I knew it was possible, and it became my standard for all relationships I would enter in the future- is what you see in me beyond need provision? And the only way to prove this is to see how you respond to trouble. It’s what I looked for in everyone, including my wife. Which may have done more damage than good, because, the necessity of Jesus dying on the cross proves that this is a very difficult thing for people to do. At the core, everyone has a limit in which they will choose to self-preserve, and so the need for grace is always there. But our need for a savior exists because this is God’s relationship standard.