Relat(able): Making Relationships WorkSample

Becoming Someone vs. Finding Somebody

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught a kingdom message about what it means to live in relationship. Jesus, after describing God’s care for the smallest parts of his creation—the birds of the air and the flowers in the field—poses this question: “Are you not much more valuable than they?” Jesus says that God is going to provide for us more abundantly than he provides each day for them. We don’t have to be anxious for anything.

Unfortunately, anxiety tends to be a huge part of our lives. We worry about what job we will have. What house we will have. How others will perceive us. This anxiety carries into our relationships. We worry about meeting that special person. The wedding we will have. The children we have to raise. But Jesus says don’t worry about tomorrow, for you have a Father who promises if you will make seeking him a priority, he will make providing for you a priority.

God knows that what you need most is a Maker, not a mate. When you’re focused on the Maker, you won’t be distracted by the cares of this world. When you’re working on falling in love with your Maker, you become the person someone else wants in his or her life.

You can’t control the people who come into your life and how they respond to you, but you can control how you invest in becoming the person God wants you to be. You can burn a lot of energy seeking that right person and miss what you need to work on in yourself.

When you submit yourself to God to be molded, he will move you toward the people he wants you to meet. You don’t have to be anxious about being in the right place at the right time or fear who will miss out. If you commit to submitting to the process of becoming, God will be responsible for the process of bringing. So, if you want to get close to somebody, the answer is to move toward Jesus.

The enemy will try to get you to stress about your relationships and whether you will meet that special person. He knows if he can get you to worry about the future, it robs the power of what God wants to do in you today. The power you need is not in what God has done in the past, though you should certainly celebrate that. It is not in what you hope God will do in the future, though you can have confidence in that. The true power is what God, through Christ, wants you to become in the here and now.

There’s a whole world of people who think their happiness depends on their ability to get what they think they need right now. But true happiness is rooted in a Father who sees what we need and is able to provide into our lives at just the proper time. We have the same needs as everyone else on planet Earth. Food. Clothes. Shelter. We all need the same stuff—we just believe the solution is in bringing those things to God and trusting that he will provide.

Respond

How easy or difficult is it for you to take Jesus’ words at face value and not worry about the future? What do you tend to worry about the most?

What do you find yourself worrying about more: the past or the future? How does this worry affect your relationship with Jesus?

What does it mean to shift your priority from finding somebody to becoming someone? Where do you need God to shape, sculpt, and form you?