It's All About Relationship

Published 3/9/20

Read Genesis 2:18

"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' "

Reflect

Why is it not good to be alone? Describe how relationship is at the foundation of God's nature.

God designed us to bond relationally with Himself. As author Doug Banister points out, "All of us are on a lifelong quest to know Him more intimately. We must learn how to bond with Him if we are to become the people He has called us to be. The cost of failing to bond with God can be staggering: addiction, low self-confidence, depression, religiosity, burnout, and relational problems." [1]

The God of the Bible is a relational God. The three members of the Trinity--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit--exist in relationship together. Jesus describes their relationship as intensely intimate. Jesus says to the Father, "You are in me and I am in you" (John 17:21).

As Banister points out, the creation story is an account of a relational God creating a man and a woman He could bond, revealing to us and through us the unity of the Godhead. We find a clue about the heart of God when we read, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). God, who exists in relationship, creates men and women who bear this same relational likeness.

God did not create just one human being, but two. When Adam was the only person in the universe, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). Why isn't it? Was relationship with God not enough for him? Evidently not. Adam needed to be in relationship with God and in relationship with other people. This is why Jesus sums up all the teaching of Scripture in two simple commands: love God and love our neighbor. The "R" word, "relationship," is what the Good News is all about...restoring the relationship for which our Father originally created us.

Pray

Lord, guide my relationship with You, as well as my relationships with my friends and family. Help me to see others through Your eyes. Amen.

1. [1]Doug Banister, Sacred Quest (Grand Rapids, MI(Zondervan Publishing House, 2001), pp. 14-15.