Relationships

I wanted to talk about relationships today because relationships are essential in life. 

Your first relationship is  with your parents.  This is where you trust another  for everything, food, love, your well being.  This is where  you fall in love with your mommy or daddy and want to marry them. There are no worries in this secure nest.

Your second relationships are with your school friends.
Your parents start to release the protections around  you. You start to learn that there are nice people and mean people. You learn that not everybody is as nice as mommy and daddy, and some people want to hurt you.

After that you have a romantic relationships beginning to develop. This is the most difficult stage of relationships because everyone’s heart is vulnerable. Your heart is actually yearning for that original relationship with your parents where they loved you so much that they would not let anyone hurt you for anything . Unfortunately you also have hormones at this stage.  A romantic relationship can change your life forever. It can destroy you. This is where you learn to feel important or disposable . After these pass, you have to make a choice to get bitter or get better in the relationships you choose.

The most important relationship is your relationship with God, which usually comes after all of the other relationships. When you have a relationship with a  person you talk to them, you call them, you write them. You invest time in them.

If you don’t invest time in relationships, they go away.

This is why people get divorced because no one is investing time in each other anymore. They found other places to invest their time whether it be a hobby or if a job. That relationship becomes broken because those involved  did not invest or protect it.

All that said when you join a church, that church family becomes your family.  Sometimes even much more than your own blood family. However as a pastor,  you cannot sit there and collect tithes from your saints.  You actually have to invest time in those relationships as well.

Otherwise that relationship will go away.

That is the true reason why people back slide. People do not backslide because they love God any less. People backslide because the relationship is broken with the people at church.

The people who promised to be their family.