Thought for the Day – Made for Relationship

Nathan Severs shares his Thought For The Day for today, ‘Made for relationships’, and how humans differ from the rest of creation.

I’ve been reminded afresh recently of the neediness of new born babies! Their absolute reliance on someone else for everything they need! Getting to sleep, getting clean, getting around, getting fed. I’m sure there’s things that my wife does too.

When I look around at nature, although I’m not an expert, I don’t really see this. Animals seem to be born, maybe get cleaned up a bit, get up and get on with it. Most humans aren’t self-sufficient until they’re at least in their twenties, some might admit that they could never do life without the support of someone else.

This reminded me that humans are different to the rest of creation. We read in Genesis 1 of how God created all the different parts of the universe and saw that they were good. And the culmination of his creation was humans. And there was a key difference – in every other act of creation, God said ‘let this happen, let that happen’ but when creating humans He says ‘let us make mankind’ and he doesn’t stop there. He says ‘let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so that they may rule over [everything else I’ve made]’. Humans were made in God’s image. And although we are fallen and sinful, Paul reminds us that as Christians we are being conformed to the image of Jesus.

And linked to being created in God’s image is the fact that humans are relational beings. The first hint we get of this in the bible is in Genesis chapter two where God acknowledges that ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’. And throughout the bible we see man’s need for relationship. Sometimes good relationships, lots of the time relationships sought in the wrong place. And ultimately the need for a truly fulfilling relationship with our creator.

Our relationship with God is described in a few different ways in the bible. One of these is the relationship between a good father and His children another is a committed and loving marriage. So are we being those obedient children we’re called to be in 1 Peter 1? Not because it will save us but because we’ve been saved by Jesus’ blood. Are we as the bride of Christ submitting to him in everything, acknowledging that he will do and expect what is best for us as we conformed to his image?

In the coming days, have a think about what relationships you’re putting the most effort into. When we work on our relationship with God as of prime importance, all the other relationships we have will start to become what they should be too.

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