Before there was ever a person on this earth—and in fact before there was even an earth—there was already relationship. How’s that? It’s because God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existed as three persons in one. Now, I can’t totally explain the Trinity. Nobody can. It’s real, but how it works is beyond our ability to comprehend. The thing is, the Bible makes it clear that the three persons of the Trinity have dwelled together forever.
Meaning relationship was, is, and forever will be. Cool, huh?
Maybe the coolest thing about all this (for us anyway) is that humanity was created out of that everlasting relationship. The Trinity had a conversation and agreed, “Let us make human beings in our image” (Genesis 1:26). The Trinity didn’t need us. They were already perfect, complete, and fulfilled within Themselves. But out of the overflow of Their love, They decided to create humans, both male and female.
The first human, Adam, lived in the Garden of Eden with God as his companion from his first day. In other words, he had a relationship with God before there was even one other human to know. The picture we get in Genesis 2–3 is that God and Adam were homeys. They would hang together in the garden, talk about this and that, and take walks to look at the shiny new plants and animals while enjoying the cool evening breeze together. All by themselves, just the two of them.
Here’s what we need to get out of this: No matter what other relationships we have (or don’t have), all of us can have a relationship with God. Through Christ, He invites us into the same kind of connection He has within the Trinity—a loving, giving relationship. Even though the top relationship goal we have on our minds right now probably is finding or improving a human relationship, it’s important to see how our relationship with God should come first and above all other relationships. It’s the relationship, our ultimate relationship, and all blessings flow out of that relationship. In fact, one of those blessings is that He enables us to do our other relationships at their highest possible level. When we put God first, He’ll bless the rest.
THE HIDDEN CONNECTION
May I make it very plain for you? You can’t have the best kind of relationships—you can’t win at relationships—without God. Whether it’s a friendship, a sibling relationship, a romantic relationship, or whatever it is, it can be pretty good in its own way, and you can come up with great Instagram posts. But when you cut that thing wide open, there are two people who need a Savior. You might have an emotional connection or an intellectual connection or just a strong physical connection, but without God that connection isn’t enough.
I’ll speak about myself here: Godly relationships are about sacrificing for others, showing kindness, having integrity, forgiving one another, and all kinds of other tough stuff like that. To really do those things, I need Jesus. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. Me without the Lord? I’d suck. I mean, I have a nasty attitude. I cut people off. I will completely check out.
But honestly, that’s all of us, right? Your issues may be different from mine, but wouldn’t you have to admit that without God, you’re a hot mess too?
I think this is a part of where Jesus was going with Matthew 22:37–38: “ ‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” All of us have things that are really important to us, like our careers, our families, our spouses. I’m really into the time I spend with my wife and kids, my preaching, and my music. For you, sports or making videos or—for all I know—selling homemade dog costumes on Etsy may be a really big deal. But no matter what, God is saying, “I need Me to be first because I know how to supply everything else in your life.”
Jesus went on to say, “A second [commandment] is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (verse 39). We’re going to come back to this verse in the next chapter, but right now I just want you to see the connection between the two commandments. Jesus picks one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus and puts them together. One, two—love God and love others. The best human relationships flow out of relationship with God.
I’m not saying that people who are living far from God can’t sometimes have good relationships. Obviously, they can and do. But I’m saying that on the spiritual level at least, there’s a difference. If you and I don’t have our constant source as God, we will always be deficient and not able to give all the grace, give all the peace we should in relationship. We won’t be able to walk in the love of Christ like we’re supposed to.
This hits close to home for me because I’ve seen the direct impact of someone’s decline in his relationship with God creating a decline in all his other relationships.
TRAIN WRECK
Doug was one of our family’s good friends. I’ve known him and his wife since I was born. Birthday parties, Christmases, all the scrapbook things you could think of—Doug was a part of that. I got an inside look at how their family thrived in fun, business, faith, and generosity, even to the point of adopting other children into their home and transforming their lives.
Unfortunately, something happened that shook Doug’s faith. He became more pessimistic, judgmental, isolated, and selfish. He was no longer devoted to the pillars that got him to a place of thriving—things like prayer, reading the Word, and community. Eventually Doug’s faith grew so thin that he decided to no longer believe in God. That decision changed everything. His business partnerships failed. His friendships dwindled. His children were damaged. And his marriage ended in divorce.
The Bible says, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). There’s a part of us made to connect with the eternal glory and beauty of God. And when God put eternity in the human heart, He knew we would need to depend on a relationship with Him to understand it all.
Nobody can convince me that what happened to Doug wasn’t a direct result of his broken connection with God. I saw it going on with my own eyes. It was like watching a slow train wreck. As soon as he lost relationship with God, all his other relationships suffered. It’s a reminder to me—and now to you—that no one is exempt from needing a relationship with God.
THE RELATIONSHIP GIVER
Let’s go back to creation. God made the sun and the moon and the sky and said, “It is good.” He made water and dry land and said, “It is good.” He made plants like spinach and kale and then, for me, all the ingredients for a delicious soul-food dinner and said, “It is good.” Then He made the sea creatures like Willy and Nemo and Flounder and all the wild animals like Timon, Pumbaa, and Simba, and He said, “It’s good.” When He made Adam, He said, “It’s very good.” It was all good.
But pretty soon God said for the first time, “It’s not good.” It’s not that God had messed up—He never messes up. Something was missing. “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ ” (Genesis 2:18).
This principle is true for all Adam’s children as well. It’s not good for you to be alone. It’s not good for me to be alone. When we set up a life that is guarded and gated, the Enemy comes to attack us. When we’re isolated, we’re at more risk of listening to lies about who we are and coming to believe them as truth. We all need relationship with people who can remind us of the truth and dispel the falsehood, who can show us some of the love our hearts need, who can help us along our way. God knows this. And that’s why God wants relationship for us.
Is it hard for you to believe that a major part of God’s plan for your life involves relationship? He wants you to have healthy and successful relationships—yes, you, the one who is content working from home and taking online courses, does all your shopping on Amazon, and doesn’t like going to church because everyone always wants to hug you and the preacher enjoys making you turn to your neighbor to say something random. God created you to be in relationship with others, even if you’re introverted, you’re shy, you’ve been hurt before…or you’re just kinda over the whole “needing other people” thing. And it’s a good thing too.
Have the courage to say, “God wants relationship for me!”
He wants you to have a best friend, even though the last one stabbed you in the back. He wants you to have pastors and mentors who create a safe place to grow and become. He wants you to be in a marriage that works and is marked by love, honor, respect, and fun. Granted, your past relationships might have been, well…the opposite of that. But God is a redeemer, so He can take whatever is broken and jacked up and work it for your good.
With God leading, relationships are a good thing, the solution to the problem of aloneness. Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 says,
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer.
You can usually tell whether a relationship is from God just by looking at this one qualification: Does this relationship help me? Think through all your close relationships and ask yourself that question about each one.
We tend to tolerate so many relationships that are taking away from us—stealing our peace, ravaging our joy, and keeping us up worrying at night. Why?
You might say, “But they’re my friends and they’re so fly.”
Okay, but if they’re so fake, you need to let them go. If the people around you are keeping you stuck in your chains, it doesn’t take divine intervention or a miraculous sign from God to reveal to you that those relationships aren’t helping you.
Many of us have experienced poisonous relationships in some way or other, and it may have negatively affected our desire to ever have human connection at all. Let me encourage you: don’t allow the pain from your past relationships to make you forfeit your future ones.
Don’t be like Bobby Boucher’s mama from one of my favorite ’90s movies, The Waterboy. She was so afraid of everything that she called everything “da debbil” (aka “the devil”). “School is da debbil!” “Foosball is da debbil!” “Girls are da debbil!”
Relationships are not “da debbil,” but if they’re not handled God’s way, they can open the door to “da debbil.” Many relationships have been misused just because we didn’t understand the God-given purpose of them.
THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE PURPOSE
There’s something else we need to notice from the Garden of Eden story: God gave Adam a job. “The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15). Adam was supposed to manage paradise (not a bad gig, if you ask me).
So, Adam not only had relationship before he had a person; he also had a purpose before he had a person. God gave him work to do before He gave him a wife. (And by the way, this is not just about men. Rebekah was carrying water when she heard about Isaac. Ruth was working in the field when she met Boaz.)
When planning to create Eve for Adam, God said, “I will make a helper who is just right for him” (verse 18). Eve aced the Ecclesiastes 4 litmus test of being a partner who helped. And what did she help Adam with? One big thing was that she supported him in doing his God-given job. She helped him fulfill his purpose.
See, people are so often trying to get a person without first understanding their own purpose—or at least without taking it into account. But a close relationship is going to have a huge impact on how well you can fulfill your purpose. This is true with your BFF, your college adviser, your roommate, your business investor…and especially your spouse.
This isn’t about being selfish—“I want a spouse who will free me up to do whatever I want.” No, no, it’s about finding a partner who will help you to fulfill the purpose for which God put you on this earth instead of getting in the way of that. (And of course you need to be the kind of person who does the same thing for your spouse, because she has a purpose too.) This is a big deal. It’s about following God.
However much you know about your purpose (I’m about to help you with that) and whatever it might be, remember that Adam started working in his purpose before he ever got a person. What I’m saying to you is that while you’re looking for somebody to date, someone to marry, or a new friend in the town you just moved to, you can be working on your relationship with God and working on doing what He’s called you to do.
When that person who gets your purpose and believes in it and loves you finally comes along, he’ll fit right into your life. The right spouse will help you move further along the path God lays out for you, not try to hold you back from that path.
A cool example of this idea of relationships pushing toward purpose is my parents.
Typically, when a couple are in ministry, the man is out front leading while the woman is in more of a support role. This was completely flipped with my parents. I watched my mom sing, preach, and pray for people all over the world in a leadership role while my dad ran sound, carried bags, and managed her itinerary in the background. It was my dad’s humility as a “man’s man” to support my mother that allowed them to have such a great impact. He helped push her into purpose, and she did the same for him.
After decades of my dad being secure in the shadows, my mom encouraged him that his wisdom was valuable. Now he leads others as a pastor and counselor on the same platforms that he once supported her on.
Just like my parents, there are right people for your unique purpose. The right friends. The right partners. The right teammates. And the right spouse. Before you find that right person, you have to find your purpose. The right person is on the other side of the right purpose.
FIND YOUR PURPOSE
How do you know what kind of purpose you have for your life? First of all, you don’t know it all perfectly at first. You begin sensing it, and God reveals more as you go.
I had no idea that God wanted me to be lead pastor of Transformation Church. But back when I was a teenager, I began sensing that God wanted to use me in His work. I got involved in my church. People started affirming the gifts they saw in me. I was given chances to lead—and I wasn’t very good at it at first, but there was some promise. Over time, I was given more and more responsibility and I began to develop into the leader I am today. Not perfect, but progressing.
That’s how it works. God reveals purpose bit by bit.
Also, your purpose can change from season to season. It evolves. It grows. Sometimes it comes to its natural end. Or it may lie dormant.
There’s a lot I still don’t know about why God has me on this earth and what He wants to do through me. One reason I know this is that some of my inborn desires are still unfulfilled. And you, I’m sure, have a lot to learn still about your purpose as well. My encouragement is, if you have a relationship with God and you’re really trying to draw near to Him, He will reveal things to you.
Now, sometimes the process of learning and growing and moving toward our purposes isn’t easy. Maybe you hate your job, but God is saying, “I know you only make ten dollars an hour, but there’s something about this job I’m using to reveal who I’ve called you to be.” You’ve got to be patient and open.
At times I’ve thought, Why am I here? The only thing I could conclude was If I’m here and it’s uncomfortable, it’s for my growth. God is trying to show purpose in my life.
You might be in a place like that right now. Accept the training, remind yourself it’s not forever, and keep your spirit tuned in to God’s Spirit.
One other thing: relationship itself is a purpose. God gives you friends so you can build into their lives and they can build into yours. Getting married is a lifetime commitment that will be rewarding but also costly to you at times. Just don’t go looking for others to give you what only God can—your purpose. Look only to God for that. And trust Him to bring people into your life who can push you ahead and whom you can push ahead in His plans.
CLOSER TO GOD
As a young man, I made the most life-altering decision. It wasn’t the college I’d go to or even whom I’d marry. It was inviting the Lord Jesus Christ to become my Savior. I haven’t been perfect, but that one act of faith has transformed my life. And if I’m being honest, I hope you make that same decision for yourself. It’s so easy. According to Romans 10:9, all you have to do is “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, [and] you will be saved” (NIV). If you want to take a minute to do that right now, I promise it’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made. And if you’re still not sure, it’s okay. I believe that at just the right time, you’ll know what to do.
Once we become a follower of Jesus, that all-important relationship exists…forever! What we do from that point on is cultivate the relationship.
Adam was a cultivator. He cultivated the garden. Eventually he would cultivate his relationship with Eve. He also cultivated his relationship with God by taking advantage of opportunities to talk and interact with the Lord.
So that’s why I’m saying we, too, should be cultivating our relationship with the Lord. Every day. Wherever we are in relationship to God, we can move forward to know Him more clearly, love Him more deeply, and obey Him more faithfully.
Maybe you’re exploring this whole faith thing and this idea of cultivating a relationship with God seems a little intimidating. Well, my boy James gives us some advice and a promise: “Come close to God, and God will come close to you” (James 4:8). It’s just that simple. You take a step, and you become more aware of how close God is. While you’re cultivating your relationship with God from your side, He’s doing even more to cultivate it from His side.
For you, what does this require?
You need to have a daily devotional life. I’m not going to tell you how to do that or when or for how long, but somehow you’ve got to crack that Bible open or scroll on that app every day. I promise it’ll make you better. It’s the only book where you read it and it reads you.
And you need to pray. That’s simply talking to God. “God, I’m frustrated about this traffic that I’m stuck in right now. I just need You to help me not cuss these people out.” God’s not mad at that. Even down to the deep things like “I’m insecure about my future.” He just wants you to talk to Him, and He’ll speak back to you.
And then you need times of worship. Worship is expressing our love to God through our lives. One of the best ways to express worship is to play music that magnifies God and minimizes our doubts, anxiety, fear, and frustration.
At different seasons of life, your time with God might look different. If you’re single, you may have a lot of time to really invest in learning about and experiencing God. So, go for it. Do intensive studying on your own, attend Bible college, go to conferences, or live out your faith on a mission trip. Being engaged is a time to establish habits of praying together as a couple and talking about faith, encouraging each other. This is also a great time to establish community with other couples who are going the same way. When you’re married, you’re going to want to make attending church together a habit and figure out how your quiet time fits in to your schedule together. The thing is, wherever you’re at, you keep your priority but you adjust.
The parenting years can be tough on a devotional life. Natalie and I have three kids, so quiet and solitude are hard to come by nowadays. We’ve realized either we’re gonna have to wake up early or we’re gonna have to stay up once the kids have gone to bed in order to meet with the Lord. So, we do it. We each also take a private spiritual retreat once a year.
Your season of life may have to dictate how you go about pursuing God, but as long as you do it, it’s going to be so beneficial, the basis for winning in other areas of your life. I’m convinced God has to be the center of your life.
The rest of the book is about these human relationships. Before we get to some specific topics of human relationships, though, I want to put it all in context for you. I’ve already hinted at how it works—it’s all about relational seasons.
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP PROGRESSION
If your childhood was similar to mine, you remember a song that used to be sung on playgrounds and with other children. It went something like this:
Michael and Natalie sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love, then comes marriage,
then comes baby in the baby carriage.
For many of us, this song might have been the first time we heard an explanation of relational progression: love > marriage > baby. It’s a little vague and incomplete, but it seems simple enough.
Then we grow up. And because we live in a fallen world and our society is backward and perverse, we realize that love > marriage > baby is not the progression in everybody’s life. Just think about all the different scenarios. Sometimes it’s baby first. Then because you had a baby, you decide you might as well get married. And since you are married, “Lord, could You please help me to love her?” Or sometimes it’s love, and then there’s a baby, and then we’re not too sure how much we can trust each other so maybe we’ll get married or maybe we won’t. From what I see on TV and online, it almost seems like a competition is going on to see who can have the most creative out-of-alignment relationships.
I want to help you understand there is a God way of progressing in relationship. It has more parts than just love, marriage, and baby and results not in confused, failed relationships but in successful, productive relationships made of two people who are healthy in themselves. These are the kind of people we have just been looking at—people who have a relationship with God and are trying to help each other do His will. It might take a while to get this process ingrained in our minds in place of all the other approaches that culture gives us. But the Bible says God can renew our minds and transform us (Romans 12:2), and we can trust Him to do that in this area for sure.
Singleness > Dating > Engagement > Marriage > Love > Children
First comes singleness. I know this is not a popular one. Not many people I know are happy to live without a bf/gf, much less a h/w. But, actually, singleness could be the most important time of your life because it’s a prime time when God reveals to you who you are. You become self-aware. You find purpose. The future begins to come into focus. We’ve talked about how you have purpose before the person, and this is the phase when it happens.
Many marriages aren’t whole because they have a lot of holes—secrets, pains, scars, fears, insecurities, and so on—that one partner is desperately hoping a spouse can fill. But what if each person had taken the time to heal and develop before they even met? Singleness is the time.
When you feel like you know yourself well enough and you’re walking with God, the next step is dating. But I’m not talking about recreational dating—just going out with anybody who attracts you or because you want to have fun or because you’re scared to be alone. If you do that, you give permission for anybody to walk in and out of your life. And then you end up putting yourself in a position to take your eyes off pleasing God. So, what I’m advocating is intentional dating—spending time with another in a God-honoring way to try to find out if that person is right for you.
If you find somebody who is walking with God and the two of you want to get married, there should be an engagement. That’s the period of time when a couple are committed and planning toward their wedding, when they will enter into holy matrimony before God. It’s a good time to talk deeply and develop plans and lay a groundwork for your future life together.
And then after engagement, there should be marriage. Marriage is different from hooking up or living together because it is a covenant relationship. I call marriage a sex container because, in God’s plan, it is the only relationship where sex should be taking place (and it should be taking place there a lot). Of course there’s more to marriage than just sex. In fact, a marriage between a man and a woman who have godly relationship goals offers the best picture we have to understand the relationship between God and His beloved people.
After marriage there should be love. Why would I say love after marriage? Well, have you read 1 Corinthians 13? Because I don’t know if you can truly do the type of stuff you have to do to really love somebody without sacrificing and giving up a lot for that person. I believe that you can like somebody a whole, whole bunch, but until you have to give to that person like Christ gave for the church—laid down His life in sacrifice—have you loved in the full manner?
And then out of our love in marriage we may reproduce, if God gives us that blessing. Having children is a little echo of the Trinity’s saying, “Let us make human beings in our image.” A married couple have a beautiful, reciprocating, complete love already between themselves, but out of the overflow of their love, they choose to produce new little human beings (diapers, teething, and 2:00 a.m. feedings included). And the relationship cycle starts again.
Every part of this process is good. Every part is appropriate. “For everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). So, hear me now: Whatever relational season you’re in, don’t just be in it. Embrace it.
This is what I like to hear:
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“I’m single, and I’m living my best life.”
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“I’m dating, and I don’t know yet if she’s the one, but I’m loving what we’ve got right now.”
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“We’re engaged, and we can’t wait to get married!”
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“We’re married and falling more in love than ever.”
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“We’ve got kids, and we can’t believe how rich and full our life is.”
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“The kids are grown and out of the house, but we still see them a lot. Meanwhile, we’re rediscovering each other in this empty nest, and it’s peaceful and warm, like a glow.”
Embrace the season you’re in, thank God for it, and make the most of it.
Remember, God wants you to have relationships. Healthy relationships. Rewarding relationships. Relationships that give you an opportunity to grow and serve and make a difference in the world.
If your relationship with Him is number one, He’ll take you from wherever you are and move you on to where you need to go next.