Relationship really is what makes the world go around.

We experience this reality every day.  I’ve heard it said that we are the sum of our relationships.  All of our relationships form and reform us.  They give us perspective, hope, acceptance…and oftentimes, rejection, despair, and discontent.  That’s why it’s so important to approach every relationship with as much grace and honor as one can muster.

It’s also important to have that “long haul” perspective that helps us realize that we do indeed have grace and are free to give and receive each other in a way that brings growth.  We enter into relationships knowing that they are risky, yet so worth it.  We learn from mistakes, we understand the importance of confidence in ourselves and the frailty of ourselves.  We gain wisdom through relationships even as they are oftentimes “messy”.

We cannot escape relationships really.  We are not created to live as isolated individuals, but as whole persons interconnected with each other.

We were created for relationship out of relationship.  As a Jesus follower, I believe in a God who is relationship in it’s very being.  I believe in what Christian orthodoxy calls the “Trinity”.  God in three Persons.  God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  Three distinct beings that mutually indwell in each other.  Relationship.  This God relationship is the creative force that gave earth it’s form somehow, gave life to it somehow, and with a word of relationship, created us and even became one of us.

It’s not only relationship with others, but with a God who understands relationship, invites relationship, and gives us relationship.  A God that is not trapped in the four walls of a church, but is out in the community dancing and crying, laughing and frustrated, committed and loving.  A God who we can love well, doubt, question, and struggle with.  A God who’s relationship with us will not end, even when we think we may want it to.

Yeah, relationship, it says a lot to me about how I should interact with creation, with my wife, my family, co-workers, friends…and with God…especially when I understand the relationship that is the creative, regenerating, renewing force all around me…shaping me into the person that I am becoming.