Most anyone with an ounce of humanity has found that relationships can be the sweetest and most tempting of all desires while simultaneously bringing us to the precipice of tragedy.
I have bled at the hands of this two-edged sword and I’m sure you have as well.
If you think back to your greatest memories, they will surely involve people. If you remember your most hurtful times, they will undoubtedly center on one or more relationships.
Sometimes, folks wander naively into a relationship. Others deliberately and competitively seek out a particular person. And there are those whose pure motives, plans and hopes have been shattered by the will of someone who bails or who cannot walk a life of integrity. Even those who have found what they are looking for in most of their relationships are always in danger of idolizing those same ones.
It’s within this context that we will go to people for answers and crutches and pleasure like a desperate down-and-outer walks into a convenience store hoping that their last dollar will win the lotto. Satan hangs out on the corners of those convenience shops.
“If only you had a _____ who understood you or could help you out with your future or security or physical desires or ____ or ____,” the devil whispers.
Our adversary knows how to fill in those blanks.
Even the strongest among us can find themselves on the edge of danger if they inadvertently let relationships subtly slide them over the thinnest line into idolatry or let the voice of Satan sound louder than the voice of their wooing Heavenly Father.
Done God’s way, relationships provide the antidote to selling our souls to the devil for what we consider an expedient and misplaced trust in people. Two-edged swords seemed to be the sharpest.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Seemingly, people were born to hurt us. Yet, relationships can be the very instruments that reveal the healing heart of God. Leaning on and into God’s word, we can find safe passage to relationships with the guidance of The Holy Spirit.
Whom have I in heaven but you [God]? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you…As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight…‘I have not lost one of those you gave me.’
Psalm 73:25 (ESV), Psalm 16:3 (ESV). John 18:9 (NIV) Editor’s bracket.