Essential Relationship

Anita Delene Manthe
Apr 6, 2017
3 min read

Have you ever thought about what you really need in relationships – or in that one relationship so important to you, the special one? What is that one thing they expect from you that will keep you constant, focused, centered and functioning? Who is it that is so important to you that you live in a way that reveals their opinion of you is the one that directs the way you live. You live for them, and what they think of you. Theirs is the standard of your behaviors. And you love it, because you love them. Your love for them encompasses every aspect of your being – and you thrive.

How long will this be true for you when this person so central to your life changes – and they will. We all change – life changes. What if they change in a way that you do not like – or they leave – permanently? What will that do to your security – the identity you have cultivated to match theirs? We placed our hope in them, and our trust – and now nothing is the same.

What will you do, and how will you function when a dramatic change comes to your life? Perhaps the Lord has allowed this for you to learn your identity is not found in frail sinful people. Your only confidence should be placed in Him. He should be the one relationship central to your functioning. The reason for your life, and the One you live to please. He is constant. He does not change. And, He will never leave you nor forsake you? Do you know this to be true? If not, what should you do, and how should you respond?

Read the following verses, and consider the exhortation in them. Who is your first love, and why?

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation (Psalm 146:3).
Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD (Jeremiah 17:5-7).
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you (Jeremiah 31:3).
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:18-19).
It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed (Deuteronomy 31:8).
I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)?