Devotionals

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“People, People who need people, Are the luckiest people in the world.” Whose heart doesn’t flutter when Barbra Streisand sings those lyrics? And who doesn’t recall or have someone special in his or her life who really made a difference?
The Doors sang, “People Are Strange.” Art Linkletter set a longevity record with his popular program “People Are Funny.” There are People Magazine, People.com, Peoples Republic, Peoples Bank, Purple People Eaters, and 1,490,000,000 hits for “people” on Google. That’s nearly 25% of the world’s number of people! Peoples is everywhere!
God built within us a desire and capacity for relationships, first with Him, then with other people, then with the rest of creation. Possibly because we don’t “see” God, we tend to get our priorities reversed and put our family and friends above Him. We often value our relationships with people above our relationship with Him, leaving Him out of the picture altogether. Sometimes, we leave others out of the picture as well.
Back in the “Me Generation” ’70s, there were popular books with titles like “Looking Out for Number One” and “I’m OK, You’re OK.” Bookstores are overflowing with “Self Help” books, but very few “Others Help” books. Books about God are usually relegated to the Religion section in the back. In other words, we are told that God is incidental, other people are OK, and we are Number One. The pyramid has somehow become inverted.
We all have many human relationships: fathers, mothers, siblings, friends, acquaintences, coworkers, spouses, children, cousins, and on and on. Time alters the quality and quanitity of these relationships, and people come and go. We also tend to put ourselves in the center of the universe, whether we know it or not, and are tempted to act superior to others, albeit unintentionally. True, we are all unique in some way, but our similarities should cause us to reexamine our attitudes toward God and others.
The trouble is that the things that make us similar are the things that make human relationships unreliable as a lasting basis for happiness. We get sick, we die, we move, we lie, we forget, we remember, we change, we refuse to budge, we quit, we plunge headlong, we worry, we take for granted, we fight, we clam up, we hold in, we vent, we don’t know, we act like we do, and, most significantly, we sin. Seems that we’re not OK after all.
Sounds pretty gloomy so far, but there is light! Mankind is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), which gives us the ability and desire to get along with each other. And, we are all below God in status, which should reinforce the fact that we are all equal to each other. He has ordained special relationships, like marriage (Genesis 2:24), families (Genesis 1:28), stewardship over the earth (Genesis 1:28), and spiritual relationships (I Corinthians 12:13; Hebrews 13:17). But the primary relationship that trumps and colors all other relationships is the personal relationship that God desires with each individual through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26). Jesus, using hyperbolic but shocking language, stated that our love for him must make our love for others seem like hatred (Luke 14:26). He also did not trust men on their own (John 2:25).
This all may sound very harsh, but the point is that as wonderful as human relationships are, and they can be fantastic, they are still a frail chain built with links of clay. Blood may be thicker than water, but hard times test the strength of the chain. Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” True friends don’t abandon you in times of trouble, but act like brothers, and vice versa. Again, Proverbs warns: “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (18:24). That friend is God in Christ.
Only one Friend can hold your hand in death. Only one Father lives forever. Only one Friend gives perfect advice. Only one Fa-ther can offer comfort. Only one Friend can provide our needs when times are tough. There is only one Number One. We read about Him in Psalm 23. We find Him in Jesus Christ (John 14:20).
Compared with God, we are all “just plain folks.” Compared to the eternal foundation of joy that He alone can provide, humans can only provide “just plain happiness.” We will look at families more closely next week.

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