Designed for Relationships

Did you know that God created mankind for the purpose of establishing relationships? Genesis 2:18 says that in the beginning, He created Adam, and decided it was not good for him to be alone. He created Eve, and said she was help that was “meet” for him, meaning she was someone suitable (or proper) for him. Why did Adam need help? He needed help to develop out of self-centeredness. With Eve in his life, God knew Adam would always be challenged to consider someone other than himself.
God established the institution of marriage between Adam and Eve for the purpose of eliminating their “aloneness.” We need companionship for reasons far greater than just satisfying a lonely heart. With Eve by his side, Adam was forced to fight his selfishness. By loving someone else, he would become a better man.
This does not apply only to married people. This applies to every relationship we will ever have as human beings, including our relationship with the Father Himself. Yes, He wants to have a relationship with us! We were designed for relationships. Relationships far exceed having fun times together with friends. God views relationships as covenants.
We all need to learn to establish covenant relationships. We need someone in our lives to help us develop. For example, single people need to establish covenant relationships to help them grow out of selfishness. All relationships are designed to help us mature in unconditional love—the God-kind of love.
God created us in His image; however, we can never totally be like Him with a self-centered mindset. God is love. Therefore His foundation for everything is love, not selfishness. Although it is good for us to love ourselves, it is not good to disregard everyone else in the process! Healthy self-love serves as the foundation for the love we distribute to others. And we cannot truly love ourselves and others without first receiving that God loves us with a relentless, unfailing, everlasting love.
We were created to be loved! He never intended for us to be alone, unattached, and independent. He wants us to embrace relationships so we can be challenged by others in a way that forces us to look at ourselves in a different light. Other people help us see our selfishness and other character flaws. And when we face conflict in our relationships, we should not run away from it. If we do, we will not grow to reach our full potential as human beings.
God’s will is for us to learn to deal with conflict His way, and develop a character that reflects the grace-filled character of Jesus Christ. So what do we do when we face challenges in relationships? Just as we would use weights to develop our muscles, we use pressure or conflict to develop into His image—the image of grace and unconditional love.
When relationships are not working, we should first check the root issues. We need to simply ask the Holy Spirit to help us discover the real problem. He may lead us to check our motives daily to be sure that everything we do is based on love, and not selfishness. We could begin by asking ourselves, “Why do I do what I do? Am I involved in manipulating people? What’s my motivation?” If we answer these questions honestly, we will discover areas where we need to make adjustments.
If you don’t know the purpose of a thing, you will abuse it. God designed us for covenant relationships so we can learn how to give each other the advantage, and not take advantage. I encourage you to examine your relationships today, and make a quality decision to get rid of a self-centered mindset and extend God’s unconditional love.