risky business

I spent this past week with some former players for a time of reunion in the western Pennsylvania forest. There was much laughter, eating and just catching up. Thinking back through the week still puts a smile on my face! One of the girls is headed to Zambia for a year in early September and another (a Marine) will be deployed the same month. I really enjoy watching them continue to grow up and interact with one another (I always have!). There is just something about being with people you are comfortable with. When you have shared something, as these girls did on and off the basketball court, a bond is created that is not easily broken. Of course, the bond is not automatic. It is there because they allowed themselves to know and be known by one another. They risked relationship.


Allowing ourselves this high risk endeavor is the only way to know such a bond. Some would point out it also can lead to much hurt, and that is true, but God has created us for relationship and the emptiness present because of this vacancy is much worse in the long run than the hurt caused by other hurting people.

Relationships are tricky business. A favorite quote of mine comes from a very sophisticated movie, “The Muppets Take Manhattan” (all right, so its not so sophisticated!) The manager of the diner (the rat) says, “peoples is peoples.” I know, I know, maybe not the most profoundly intelligent statement you will ever hear but all too true. Humans will do what is in them. We are selfish, prideful and arrogant by lot and if someone else doesn’t seem to meet our expectations or needs, we have ways of dealing with them and when we are on the receiving end of those dealings…hurt. Too many times it becomes a cycle—hurt people, hurt people.

But God designed us for relationship. Is He intentionally setting us up? I say yes, but not for our hurt. God is trying to help us see Him! When people make choices that hurt others, He will use that as an opportunity to show Himself to be all that He has said He is. Unfortunately too many times we find ourselves nursing our wounds and shrinking back instead of looking for God to be…God.

The truth is, hurt hurts! My challenge is not to ignore the hurt, or validate the wrong, but to allow God to work in US using it to help us see Him rather than keeping our focus on what the other person deserves.

How about it? How about looking at the “peoples” around you and allowing God to work in His way and His time so that you might see Him? Let’s keep our eyes open for opportunities to risk in relationship this week, and watch what God will do in and through us.