On Relationships

I started reading Brennan Manning’s newest book The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus right before I came back to SC to do my mentoring. I got about halfway through when I had to stop because of the assigned books I had to do for schoolwork. Since that ended about a week and a half ago, I picked it back up and am in love w/ it once again. I have to say that Brennan Manning is one of my biggest heroes and look to him as an unofficial mentor.

I am continually amazed by how there will be something that has been at the forefront of my mind and whatever I am reading will deal specifically w/ that and bring new insights, affirms what I’ve been thinking and feeling, or states it in a much more profound way. Relationships—the importance of them, the impact they have, and the constant struggle to reach out to those who aren’t like “us”—has been a constant on my mind lately and to be honest has not ceased for a long time. It’s always in the mix w/ whatever I’m thinking about—or better yet, analyzing—but sometimes it’s the sole issue. Here are a few things Manning says in the book about how to think like Jesus and be transformed so much by it that every single relationship and/or interaction we have w/ others is affected by something Other:

“To think like Jesus is to experience being loved so completely by God that we are existentially incapable of being other than the children of the Father in Christ Jesus…We cannot contain it bc love by its nature is meant to be shared…Perhaps by nothing more (or less) than our friendship extended to another, a friendship that is real, unselfish, nonproselytizing, w/out condescension, and full of profound respect, we can lead another to discover, ‘I too am loved by my Father in the Lord Jesus’…What a gift we can be to the world when we are transparent answers to their most heartfelt questions! Manning states a few pages later, “If we want to think as Jesus did, we too must break through our illusions of separation from others. While we make a conscious effort to live apart from the worries of the world, we must also recognize that God created a world saturated w/ beauty, lucidity, vividness, and intensity.”

(I’m sorry, but I just have to note that I am in Barnes & Noble right now and just saw a man walking around fully dressed in a Santa outfit—boots, belt, hat, the whole nine! The funniest thing is he is walking around like he’s not even wearing it. I smiled at him and gave him the ol’ ‘what’s happenin’ head nod and he didn’t give any sort of feedback like he didn’t realize what I was giving him props for. I love it! If anything in this day were to go wrong all I have to do is revert back to this moment and realize that the day has already been made and blessed by Johnny-Suit ‘em up-Santa and nothing can take that away. And I digress…)

What will it take for us to be instilled w/ the truth that love by its nature is meant to be shared? And further more, that true love knows no limits and has no restrictions or exceptions? It seems as though so many of us have an innate sense of conditional love. If we are made in the image of God where do learn how to conditionally love? Or maybe I should say when do we unlearn how to love w/ what we were born w/ by the Lover? It’s much easier to love others when we feel loved, but what about when we don’t feel loved? Should Christians ever have this feeling? I want to say not but I have felt unloved. I have felt alone. I feel unappreciated. Why? For the most part, it’s bc I desperately seek human approval and significance. I understand that I am shallow and all too often forget what grace is all about, ceasing to grant it to others bc I have forgotten that Grace granted Himself to me.

My favorite part is where Manning starts out w/ “Perhaps by nothing more…” This has been the greatest truth I have experienced about relationships in my life and especially since being a Christian. Why do we try to “do good things” for others or what is our basic intention in developing a friendship w/ someone at work, school, or wherever? Is it first and foremost to “win them to Christ?” Or is it bc we see Christ in them and are yearning to get to know Him more through them? When we see others as Jesus did, we see in them a loveliness that most aren’t even aware of. When I wasn’t a Christian, I learned most about who Jesus was not by those who quoted Scripture to me or tried to tell me how great Jesus was or even how much he loved me. It was those people who displayed a pure love and interest in me for who I was (and who I wasn’t) that I was able to see that I too am loved by my Father in the Lord Jesus. No strings attached. They never even said anything about being a Christian or talked to me about Jesus, but there was something different about them. The Unspoken spoke to me. He still does.

When we understand that we are the beloved, the gravity we hold on others we come in contact w/ is so great you’d think it was from God….oh wait a second, it seems like that bc it is. There is an unspoken that speaks through our every action. I am not talking about an understanding that is simply a knowledge or acknowledgment of being beloved by Love, but an understanding that becomes the blood flow of our life and our whole being is infected w/ this “beloved truth.” We can’t not love others bc God can’t not love others. That’s pretty cool. Now, in the first “…” of me quoting Manning, he stated, “It is overwhelmingly joyful news, and we become overwhelmingly joyful people bc of it.” So, what he’s saying is that after we become Christian we never have any negative emotions? What about what I was saying in the former paragraph? Should I not have these feelings at all? If other people—especially non-Christians—see me not happy they won’t know I’m a Christian, right? Hardly! This is a problem w/ many Christians today. We are so scared of coming to grips w/ reality and our human frailness that we’ll do everything to cover up our true emotions. Christians are called hypocrites so much bc we most certainly are. We take what Brennan Manning just stated in a way that makes Satan give fist pumps at our emotional roller coaster ride of religious experiences we call Christianity. If you’ve seen the movie Saved, the perfect example is when Hillary Faye gets everyone to start laughing at the lunch table so that Regina will think that Christians can have fun. This sad but true scene begs the question, “What are we trying to prove?” We have become someone we are not trying to entice, or “witness to” others that the Christian life is real and true. Why would we expect anyone to believe that it’s real and true when we’re not being real and true to ourselves and to God? We’ve forgotten we are all made in the image of God and accepted despite our faults and inconsistencies. When we have no concept of this we will cease to see others made in the image of God.

More to come…