Relationship Building Blocks

As I was praying last night a whole revelation came to my mind about relationships. We go about them all wrong....at least we do most of the time. The question we need to ask ourselves is what do we want the foundation, the thing all else is built upon, to be in our relationships - be it friendship or more-than-friendship. Most times we start with the physical - in friendships this mean those interests we hold in common, in romantic relationships it translates into physical touch and attraction. We've all seen the epitome of this building block in romantic relationship - it's when people have sex more then they talk because well, sex is the only thing they really have going for them. And in friendships this building block is just as unsteady. What happens if your interests drift apart? Is the relationship finished? The analogy that came to mind for having the physical as the foundation is building a really heavy statue upon, not a solid block but rather a little point. The point cannot hold the weight of all that is built upon it and it will ultimately crumble and crash.

Building relationships upon emotion, also a sketchy road to go down, because our emotions are sometimes shallow and sometimes change. There is really little stability. Plus it tends to create dependance that is sufficating for both people instead of liberating.

But when you build upon the foundation of the spiritual, a deep shared love for God that is expressed and explored together, I don't think there is anywhere to go but up. It's like having a solid block foundation that will support any weight that is put upon it. But so few friendships every reach this level of expression, let alone make it a basis. Why? Well, we think spirituality is something private not to be shared or we don't know where we stand with God enough to express it, we are void of an opinion. What are we missing out on? Why do we degrade ourselves to be caught in perpetual shallowness of relationships?

Thinking back, my friendships built on the physical and emotional have discenegrated, either quickly or over time. But the relationships that last have the spiritual as the base. When I think of one of my oldest and dearest friends of 11 years I see that everything we have is built upon the spiritual. When I think of my friends that I am close to now, the six people who mean the most to me, we all have deep and ever expanding spiritual connections and entaglements. We are growing together and growing in God at the same time! What a beautiful thing!

May we be more intentional about what we are building our relationships upon.