weekend Inspirations

DON'T TOUCH ME

by Tim Knappenberger

Father's Day, 1996. To set the stage for this meditation, think of your favorite Hallmark Card or Pepsi Commercial. Everything outlined in a golden haze. Beautiful Sunday. Blue skies, cool breezes. Dad having breakfast on his backyard deck. Enjoying the peace and serenity of a softly dawning morn. Enter my youngest son, Evan, carrying my Father's Day gift. You can almost hear the music swell in the background, can't you?! Now hear Evan (in the most monotone, expressionless voice you can imagine): "Happy Father's Day, Dad. Here's your gift. Don't hug me." Fade from soft golden glow to black...

As a marriage and family counselor, I suppose I focus more on relationships than the normal person. Practically everyone who's poured their heart out to me has been prompted to do so primarily because of relational strain in their life. Think about it. ALL of our greatest joys and deepest hurts usually have to do with our relationships. It's not that new car that really causes our heart to soar. It's the cute redhead in the second row of studyhall. It's not that job that we slaved six years through college to land to which we're committed body and soul. It's that snotty nosed toddler with drool on his chin and peanut butter in his hair for which we'd lay down in front of an on-coming train.

I've had the privilege of being part of a prayer group of five other believers for the past two years. We bring our joys and sorrows, hurts and victories to this inner circle. Know what it is that we usually focus our prayers on? Yep, relationships. A runaway teenage child that accuses her broken-hearted mom of not loving her. A husband watching his 18 year marriage fade from view. A father receiving an overseas call from a son he hasn't heard from in months (the same week after the group prayed for their situation). High school sweet hearts breathing new life into a 20 year marriage after coming back from the strain of their mid-life crisis. Relationships are really what matter most to us. But why do they matter so much? Why are we made to desire them so much? Why do we screw them up so badly when we value them so highly? To begin to understand these questions, I think we have to look at our Maker.

Job 7:17-19 "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?

Someone once observed that God is obsessed with Man. You could make a good case. After all, look at His relationship with the children of Israel in the Old Testament. Read about His longing for intimacy with us in the Psalms and Song of Solomon. Consider that He didn't consider the torture and death of His own Son too great a price to pay to woo us back to Himself. If we didn't mean as much to God as we apparently do, it would have been far easier to "erase" us off the planet and try a new experiment. Nevertheless, pursue us, woo us, and long for us He does.

If we are created in the likeness and image of God, then we must be as obsessed with relationships as is our Creator. Problem is, we will never cease to struggle with them until we realize that we first have to reconcile and "make right" our first and primary relationship. Contrary to pop psychology, that relationship is NOT with ourselves. It's with God. All of our relationships flow from this core one. Husband, wife, parent, friend, student, teacher, lover, co-worker, whatever. All of what we are to other people and what they are to us is predicated on what we are to God and what God is to us. We keep trying to fill that "God-shaped vacuum" inside of us with other things and people. Try as we might, we'll never succeed in fulfilling it.

We can't. God saw to that when He made us the way He did.

A long-time junkie and apostate was recounting the story of his redemption to a friend. The ex-junkie explained that his salvation was a result of "me doing my part and God doing His part." His friend asked, "Parts? What do you mean 'your part and God's part'?" "Well", the new convert explained, "My part was to run like hell away from God." "And God's part?", the friend asked. "Well, His part was to keep chasing me until He caught me."

Jer 31:3 (NIV)

Please drop Tim a line at   knapp@raex.com