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Relationships: A Mess Worth Making
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It was not good for man to be alone. This is one of the first descriptions of humanity we find in the Bible. When God created man and placed him in the garden, He recognized this fundamental truth: we are made for companionship and relationship with one another.
God created the animals and presented them to Adam so he could name them, but no suitable helper was found. So God put the man to sleep, took one of his ribs, and created woman. When Adam woke and saw her, his first words were: "You are bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." This emphasizes the sameness, unity, and oneness between man and woman.
While this story is often understood as a picture of marriage—an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman—it speaks to something broader. Marriage itself is not the end goal of all relationships. In eternity, there will be no marriage. But in Revelation, we see a vision of the end times: "There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every tribe, people, and language standing before the Lamb."
Just as Adam and Eve picture two distinct individuals coming together as one, in eternity all followers of Christ will come together as one—different individuals from every tribe and language, united in Christ. This is the glorious final outworking of the Adam and Eve story: two becoming one. We are not meant merely to relate to one another, but to be one with one another.
We often speak of two ways of glorifying God relationally: marriage and singleness. In marriage, your unity signposts to the unity of Christ and the church. In singleness, you glorify God by pointing to the fact that we can only be fully satisfied relationally in Christ. Both are beautiful ways to honor God.
But we often forget there is another way—and this way is significant because it will continue into eternity. Both marriage and singleness in their current form will pass away. In eternity, there will be one marriage: the bride (the church) and the bridegroom (Christ). We will all be united as one bride with Christ.
But friendship will continue into eternity.
Friendship is not secondary to other relationships. Whether married or single, whether parent or child, sibling or neighbor, work colleague or cousin—however we relate to one another, we are firstly friends together. This is our primary way of glorifying God together. Friendship is not something that just happens; it is something we need to pay attention to and actively cultivate.
But then we have a problem. Everything goes wrong with Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3.
Eve reaches out and takes the fruit that was forbidden. But in disobeying God, the perfect unity between man and woman is broken. Adam does not love Eve well; he stands by and lets her sin. He becomes a poor friend to her. When he is then tempted and eats the fruit himself, he blames Eve. That oneness is shattered.
This brokenness escalates in Genesis chapter 4, when Cain becomes jealous of his brother Abel and murders him. And disunity in relationships has existed ever since. When we struggle relationally, it is deeply painful because we are made to be one with one another. When oneness goes wrong, it hurts.
When the world faces relational disunity, it offers three options. First, we might shut down and focus on ourselves. Second, we might fight—lashing out and blaming each other as Adam blamed Eve, fighting until nothing is resolved. Third, we might quit and walk away when things get difficult.
But what if there is a better way? What if there is a more God-honoring, more God-glorifying way to deal with relational mess and pain?
We find this answer in Colossians chapter 3. Starting in verse 5:
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry... Rid yourself of such things as anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge in the image of its creator.
We do things differently than the world does. We are made new in Christ, and therefore we have a better way. But so far, this passage has only told us to stop being mean to one another—to avoid anger, filthy language, and lies. But it is not enough just to be nice.
There is a saying: "If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." This is wise, but it is not enough. It is not enough just to avoid being mean.
The passage continues:
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free.
Paul is presenting a list of different groups of people who were vastly different from one another. Jews and Gentiles had different beliefs and values. Barbarians and Scythians were foreigners. A slave lived completely differently from a free person. Yet Paul says, "There is no Jew or Gentile. There is no circumcised or uncircumcised. There is no slave or free."
Why? Because when we come to Christ, we are different people who have become one together. We are united in Christ.
Christ is all, and is in all.
What unites us is Christ. It is not enough just to be nice to one another, because we are meant to be so united that the distinctions between us seem to fade away because we are united in Christ.
We do not all become the same—as Revelation shows, the redeemed come from every tribe and language. Males remain males, females remain females. We keep our differences. But we are meant to all be one with one another. And to be one with someone takes far more than just being nice; it takes true friendship.
Being friends together is worth the mess. The solution is not to quit when things get messy, but to continue loving each other well and striving for oneness.
Obviously, this is hard. Very hard. When we struggle relationally, it causes deep pain and hurt. Some of you hear this as a nice reminder to be friendly. But some of you have struggled deeply relationally and are being reminded of pain you have endured or guilt you carry for not doing what I am saying—trying to make a relationship work even when it was hard.
God's grace is bigger than your mess. God's grace is bigger than the mess in your relationships.
There is grace when the other person chooses to walk away—that is not on you. There is wisdom for when it is necessary to walk away from someone—if there is abuse, God wants you to be safe. And sometimes we simply drift apart; there is no love lost, just the reality that we cannot be particularly close to everyone.
But the people who are in our lives, the friends we do have, are important. It is worth fighting for oneness and unity even when it is hard.
The passage says in verse 10:
We have put on the new self, which is being renewed.
On one hand, when we gave our lives to Christ, we became new. But on the other hand, we are being renewed—there is an ongoing process. While we are all still being renewed, we are all living with messy brokenness in relationships until Christ returns. This is an acknowledgement that we should expect difficulty.
The passage continues from verse 12:
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
This was only written because it is necessary. If there were no messiness in relationships anymore, we would not need to be told to bear with one another or forgive one another.
When it is messy, when it is challenging, when it is painful—there is an encouragement here that we should expect it. If we entered every relationship expecting it to be easy all the time, no wonder we would fail. Because it never is. No relationship is perfect.
There is an expectation that we are all still being renewed, that we will all have to bear with one another and forgive each other. This is how we will have to live until Christ returns. If you are struggling right now, there is encouragement that this is normal. You are not alone. All of us struggle with this. All of us go through tough and messy relational problems.
What if God is using our difficult relationships to renew us? We often come to God with our prayer requests, simply wanting the answer. "God, it's really difficult with this person right now. Please sort out this situation now." And it is hard when it does not happen straight away.
But what if in God's wisdom, He is using that difficulty to renew you?
When things go wrong relationally, our weaknesses are exposed. When we come to the end of ourselves, that is when we truly reach out to God. The people closest to us reveal the worst in us—because with them, we lower our guard. We are vulnerable. We let people in, let them get under the surface of who we are. With those closest to us, our worst selves are revealed. And it is then that we remember: we are not self-sufficient. We do not have it all together, and we need God.
If everything is going well, we often miss the fact that we need God. But it is through our brokenness that we learn to be completely dependent on His grace.
You can have assurance that when you prayed, "Please God, change this situation. May I see reconciliation," and did not immediately see the answer—that is not because God has abandoned you. He is working in that situation. He is listening to your cries. He sees your tears. He knows the pain, the shame, and the guilt you are feeling, and He is working in that situation, molding you, growing you, making you more like Him. Just because that situation does not change immediately does not mean He is not working.
We also have incredible hope because we have the Holy Spirit. He can come into situations, and we can see reconciliation. Both the miracle and the lack of immediate change are signs of God's work in your life.
What is the hope? We do not have a distant God who sees us making a mess of things relationally and simply lets us get on with it.
We have a God who chose to come to Earth and take on the form of a man—fully man and fully God. Jesus experienced the mess of relationships just like everybody else. In His hour of greatest need, He was abandoned and even betrayed by His closest friends. He knows what it is to go through messy relational challenges.
But the biggest and messiest and most broken relationship of all is the broken relationship between humanity and God. We rejected Him. We turned our backs on Him and chose to do things our own way. If you are anything like me, you reject God and turn your back on Him daily.
But here is the stunning truth: God considers a relationship with you a mess worth making. God considers a relationship with me and with you so much worth making that He chose to give Jesus, His only Son, to die on a cross for you. This is how far God goes for a relationship with you.
When Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God allowed brokenness into His relationship with His only Son so that He could work through it to bring about hope of restoration and reconciliation in our relationships.
Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, we can now enjoy friendship with God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. No amount of mess can separate us from being true friends with God.
We might experience pain and awkwardness in all kinds of relationships now. But a day is coming when that pain and awkwardness will come to an end.
There will come a day when the pain you are experiencing right now relationally will come to an end. There will come a day when we will gather together in complete unity before the Lamb of God. We can ask God for that day to come early for us—asking the Holy Spirit to help us experience a little taste of that oneness now and to help us persevere in relationships when they are hard, to help us be friends with one another and love each other well.
