Destroying our delight in others through the neglect of pleasure in God
In addressing the subject of community, one will come up against this obvious predicament. Our mind can only contain one focus at a time. The Bible clearly calls us to one another. But Im sorry, you can’t be thinking about Jesus in the same moment that you focus on another. Thus there is always a tension in the sould between the two.
This tension however does not infer that allowing your heart to fully enjoy another human being or created thing gets in the way of God. As if these were opposing one another. Actually biblically it leads you to Him and He will lead you to them. He intends on marrying humanity to one another as He prays still today that we would be one as He is with Himself. He prayed In john 17 that the divine community of love fluent in the trinity, would break out and enflame the hearts of human beings for one another. This enjoying would reflect the delight god has in himself. This self-giving would reflect the relationship He has to His father and best man. Jesus speaks that the command to love Him and the one near you are similar each other; that they compliment one another wonderfully. Harmony of the soul with God and man. God wanted a family in which we would simultaneously enjoy him and our wonderful counterparts.
unfortunately the sad present state of humanity exemplifies a dramatic hindrance in His plan. The human soul broken through sin, distorts true beauty. Forgetting God in our relationships becomes a context where we can take from one another as much as we want for the sole purpose of feeling something. It was when adam and eve took their relationship outside the garden, that all the fascination previously found in one another became strikingly less beautiful, the fragrant colors faded into depressing shades of gray, and all previous sources of love become increasingly futile.
What was garden life like? God walks with Adam with eve, while adam and eve enjoy fulfillment in each other. But when communion with God was lost, relational brokenness became the new norm of the human experience. We must understand that a return to God is a return to one another. When we come back to God, our perception of beauty, ability to laugh, empathize, and enjoy become enlarged. And the ability to wait for our own personal gratification in friendship increases. With God our relationships become more than give me, and give me now. They become powerful sources of life and fulfillment. I promise you, the more you like God the more you will like creation.
Here in our desperate state, we reach into others to a depth that desecrates the relationship. In reaching for more we can give, we create an atmosphere of anger, reluctance, distance, and resentment. When we allow our relationships to continue without a space for God, then delayed gratification, patience, and perseverance in relationships becomes slim to none. This is when love is destroyed and no longer can it be deemed love. We cannot wait for the response of the other, always attempting to control and violently extract from others the love we need.
The effect that times of solitude and communion with God have upon our dearest friendships is beautiful. When the cavity in our heart that is designed for God is filled in a substantial way, we are able to endure the pain of love not given. We are able to wait for the flower of another’s heart to open to us. And enjoy the wait. So the dance between God and our neighbor is a tandem of vibrant syncretism.
