Made for Relationship
One of my favorite movies to this day is Castaway with Tom Hanks. It’s a great story of survival, a man who is lost at sea after a terrible plane crash and finds himself isolated on an island without hope or anyone else to share in his loss and loneliness. At his most frustrated point, the main character lashes out in anger about his plight, and from his deep cry emerges my favorite character in the movie… Wilson. I love Wilson because of what he represents. The main character’s personification of the volleyball is his expression of a deep need he has within, his need for relationship, to be connected, to be known. Rather than ending his life on the island, rather than entering into the dark cave of isolation, the character emerges with hope and someone to share it with.
Now that is of course a silly example of what a friend is, what relationship looks like, but it illustrates a deep truth about how God has created us… to be in relationship with Him, others, and ourselves. Every human being has been created to be connected, and it is when we begin to lose that connection that the darkness of our vices, addictions, and habits begin to hold tighter and tighter. When our loneliness calls out for relationship, we either reach out or we act out. We reach out to God or another person to be comforted, to laugh, or to cry. We cry out believing our cry will be met by the presence of another. Or, we choose to silence the cry with a temporary fulfillment like food, pornography, alcohol, or shopping. We run fast and far from our need to be in relationship by covering our pain, but the roots of how we are made are deep, and no amount of covering will make the need go away.
So then, we go to God to know what we were made for. We look at His word and see first that it is not good that man should be alone (Gen 2:18). Then we see that the cost of sin is isolation, being cast out from the presence of our greatest relational need, God (Gen 3:23). Because of sin, our intimacy with God and others was severed, but because of Jesus we have been given the opportunity to be brought back into real relationship (John 1:10-13). If we receive the offer of relationship from Jesus the longing we have is satisfied in Him no matter what our circumstances (Phil 4:11-13). Finally, it is through Christ that we can have real relationship with others where transformation and mission come alive (Acts 2:42-47).
Are you willing to come out of hiding, out of your cave, off your island, and be known in relationship with God and others?
Who can you share your desire for community with this week?
-Evan
