Relational Health: Facing the Fears That Ruin Relationships
“RELATIONAL HEALTH: FACING THE FEARS THAT RUIN RELATIONSHIPS”
50 Days Of Transformation
October 26, 2014
Cornerstone Community Church
On the way into church one morning I was listening to the news and one story in particular caught my attention. The story came out of China. You might know that since the late 1970s China has had a policy of allowing only one child per family in order to limit what had been its out-of-control population explosion. But that policy has had some serious consequences, even though it has succeeded in achieving its goal. It turns out that China now has a disproportionate number of unmarried men, particularly in the smaller villages throughout the country, and that many of these men have become somewhat desperate for companionship. Awhile ago a handful of entrepreneurs went out into the villages of China promising the men that they would hook them up with wives … for a price. The eager men gladly paid these entrepreneurs large amounts of money, in some cases all the money they had. But when the men went to meet the wives they had paid so much to acquire, they discovered that they had been taken for a ride. There were no women for them. And so they were broke now, and still alone.
China isn’t the only place where people are starving for love. The search for true love is universal. As men and women created in the image of God, we were made for love. At most weddings I do I point out that at the end of every one of the six days of Creation God looked around and said, “It is good.” That’s what God said when he created the sun and the moon and the ocean and the mountains and the birds and the fish and the trees and the flowers. But when God created the first man – Adam – do you know what he said? He said, “It is not good.” Why did God say that? I’m sure the women here this morning would love to answer that question. You can think of all sorts of things that aren’t so good about the male of the species. But while you might well be right in your opinion of men, that’s not why God said, “It is not good.” Here’s what the Bible says: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” (Genesis 2:18) The problem with the man, God said, was that he was alone. “I did not design man,” God said, “to be alone. He needs someone to love. He needs someone who will love him.” And so God created Eve, and only after God had brought Adam and Eve together was God able to finally say, “It is good.”
And so as we grow up we are always on the hunt for true love; that’s just the way God made us. I thought I found true love when I was six years old. Her name was Dorothy. Sure, Dorothy was a little older than me, but I was sure she would wait for me to grow up and move to Kansas and that she would be perfectly happy to live forever with me and Toto. As you might guess, that relationship never panned out. I next thought I found true love in third grade. My teacher that year was a beauty named Miss Christmas. I was sure she was the one. Like Dorothy, she was older than me, but at least she had the advantage of being real. But to my chagrin when I came back from Christmas vacation, Miss Christmas had a new name – Mrs. McDougal. The love of my life had left me for another man.
My first real experience with true love came in college with a girl named Jane. I learned a great deal about love in that relationship, most of which I’d like to forget. I learned about passion and romance on the one hand, but I also learned about hurt and misunderstanding and pain. And you’ve learned those lessons too. Every one of us here has experienced up close and personal both the pleasure and the pain of true love. And in one way or another, every one of us is still looking for true love.
The statistics tell us that 44% of the adult population in San Jose is single. Part of that single population has never been married, and a larger part consists of those who are formerly married. According to some sources 72% of marriages in California end in divorce. That’s a lot of people for whom true love has been a huge disappointment. And those of us who haven’t been divorced will be the first to admit that true love just as often eludes us. (By the way, do you know what the definition of a bachelor is? A bachelor is a man who has missed the opportunity to make some woman miserable.) I married my true love 34 years ago. When I married her I thought I finally understood what true love was all about. But I have to be honest. Now, 34 years later, I realize just how little I knew about love back then, and just how much about true love I still have to learn.
So where do we find true love? And just to be clear, I’m not just talking about romantic love; I’m talking about love in all its many aspects, including the love of family and the love of our friends. After all, God made us to be relational creatures. He designed us as people to need more than a relationship with him, and he designed us to need more than a relationship with our spouse. God designed us to thrive when we live in community, when we are intimately connected with a variety of friends and family. And what we want to discover this morning is how to make the most of those relationships, how to have not just a series of acquaintances but how to experience a healthy intimacy with a community of like-minded people. And just to shorten all that, for this morning let’s just say that what we’re looking for is true love.
A few years ago my wife heard a song, a country song, that really grabbed her. It was by an artist named Clint Black. She bought his CD, brought it home and gave it to me and told me to listen to this one song. I thought she was kidding. “Can anything good come from a country-western singer?” I asked. I really didn’t want to listen to a song about guys who loved their 18-wheelers and the women who loved them too much, but out of respect for my wife I decided to give it a listen. The song she wanted me to hear was called “Something That We Do.” Here’s how it begins:
I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
I still believe the words we said
Forever will ring true
Love is certain, love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isn’t something that we find
It’s something that we do.
And as I listened to this song I had to admit something – a country-western singer had gotten it exactly right. Love, true love, isn’t something that we find; love is something that we do.
Now some of you aren’t going to buy that because it comes from a country-western singer and not the Beatles, Beyonce or Beethoven. So I guess I will have to resort to the Bible to support my thesis this morning that love isn’t something that you find; it’s something that you do.
True Love’s Ways
Long before Clint Black, before Katy Perry, and even before William Shakespeare tried their hand at describing love, a converted Jewish rabbi we know as the Apostle Paul wrote the definitive treatise on love. It is found in the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians, the 13th chapter, a chapter in the Bible so famous that Bible students simply refer to it as the “Love Chapter.”
Most of you will probably recognize the words once I begin reading it. Here is how this famous chapter begins:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
You get the point. Love is the greatest virtue. Love is more valuable than intelligence. Love is more valuable than power, even the power to perform miracles. Love is more valuable than the ability to achieve the supernatural.
OK. We understand. We even agree. But what is love – true love, that is? Is true love the love of Romeo for Juliet? Is true love the love of Lassie for her master? Is true love the love of Ryan Gosling for Rachel McAdams in “The Notebook”? Is true love a place where we fall, or something that we’re in, or something that we find? No, Paul says. True love is something that we do. Listen to the Bible’s description of true love’s ways:
Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious; never boastful or proud; never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (The Living Bible)
Now I know what most of you are thinking. You’re thinking, “I sure hope my husband is listening to this.” Our natural human tendency is to poke the person next to us in the ribs and say, “Did you hear that? That’s how you’re supposed to treat me.” This is the advantage of being the pastor. I am never sitting next to my wife when these things come up, so she can never poke me in the ribs – at least not until we get home.
But if we read these words of Paul and think, “Wow, I wish I could find someone who would love me like that,” we miss the point. The secret to true love is not to find someone who loves like that; it is to become someone who loves like that. That is the secret to transforming our relationships; that’s how we experience relational health, by learning how to become a true lover.
Do you want to find true love? Then become a true lover. If you want your partner to be patient and kind, then become patient and kind. If you want your family to be forgiving and unselfish, then become forgiving and unselfish. If you want your friends to be loyal no matter what the cost, then become loyal no matter what the cost.
But what, we wonder, if we become true lovers and the people we love don’t change? What if we’re transformed during these 50 days, but they’re not? That’s a fear we have; that’s a risk we take, isn’t it? Mother Teresa, a single woman who was a without doubt a true lover, said it best in this poem:
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.
Our motivation for becoming a true lover is not to trick or manipulate our mates or our friends into becoming true lovers in return. Women, you’ve probably heard this saying: “Don’t imagine you can change a man, unless he’s in diapers.” Yet often love does just that. When my wife loves me with a true love, it usually has a powerful effect on my life. True love is transforming. In fact, psychologists tell us that the excitement of being loved increases our heart rate; it makes our faces glow; and it makes our lips redder. The emotion of being loved causes our pupils to dilate, they tell us, making our eyes look brighter and clearer. In other words, God has so designed us that even our bodies become lovelier when we are loved.
But that’s not why we become true lovers. We don’t become true lovers for the purpose of changing our mates or our friends. We become true lovers because it’s right. We become true lovers because it is who God made us to be. We become true lovers because it is only when we love that we experience the fulfillment and contentment that God offers us.
They asked some five year olds what true love is, and here is what some of them came up with. “True love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making him give you any of his.” “True love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him to make sure the taste is OK.” “True love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt and then he wears it every day.” “When someone loves you, the way she says your name is different. You know that your name is safe in her mouth.” “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her, even though he has arthritis too. That’s true love.”
If I had to distill what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 about true love’s ways to one word, I think that word would be “loyalty.” Paul said that love is loyal no matter what the cost, that loyalty is what true love is all about. If you want to see this kind of love up close and personal, just criticize a child to his or her mother. I have heard some moms complain about their kids until they were blue in the face, but as soon as someone else said the first unkind thing about their kids, they were all over that person like white on rice. Moms are fiercely loyal to their kids, because they love them with a true love. And I know that’s how Brenda loves me. When I do something wrong, let me suggest that you let Brenda tell me about it. Whatever you do, don’t you tell Brenda about it. Believe me, you don’t want to get her mad, and nothing will get her mad more quickly than to say something mean about me, whether it’s true or not. More likely than not she’ll agree with you that what I did was wrong, but that doesn’t matter. Her loyalty is to me, and she will, in the words of 1 Corinthians 13, always believe in me, always expect the best of me, and always stand her ground in defending me. That’s true love’s ways.