Going Deeper In Relationships part 3

You know here in Panama Valentines day is not just the celebration of Romantic relationships. The holiday here is called "Dia Del Amor y La Amistad" which means day of love and friendship. I thought that was interesting as in the states the day has become a commercial giant focused mainly on Romance. While romance is certainly important in a marriage relationship a strong marriage cannot exist on romance alone. Part of what I want to discuss in this blog is the importance of friendship as the foundation and stuffing of every successfully deep relationship.


THE VALUE OF FRIENDSHIPS

Godly friendships are the most valuable thing on this planet second to our relationship with God. Every relationship is at it’s best when it becomes a friendship. Friendship is the essence of deep relationships.

When my wife and I first got married we didn’t know each other that well and we did not have time to develop a friendship first. So not only were we from different cultures and speak different languages (Marielena is Panamanian) but we also were not friends first. The first couple of years of our marriage were difficult to say the least. It’s still hard and to be honest it’s only by the grace of God that we are still together. But success has come in our relationship when we have put away the “should’s” about what a wife "should" be or what a husband "should" be and we just “be” friends.

You "go" deeper. You do not push for depth and you cannot fabricate depth in relationships. The deep things are already there inside of you, the other person, the word of God, life itself and truth. Depth is already there. Going deeper in our relationships entails plunging those depths with another person not trying to create some kind of false depth. Deep relationships are like going scuba diving with another person, going beneath the surface and discovering together.

WHAT ARE WE AFRAID OF?

The first step to going deeper is admitting to ourselves the embarrassing reality that we are afraid to go deeper in our relationships. It doesn’t matter what your temperament or personality or culture is you as a Human being are afraid of deep relationships. You may be a people person or even the life of the party but you are inherently, in your Human nature, still afraid of deep relationships.

It’s like the child who is afraid to swim in the deep end of the pool but won’t admit it. The only way that he will ever plunge those depths is to first admit that he is afraid. Unless he does this he will continue to simply avoid going in to the deep end of the pool.

We lost our natural ability for intimacy in the Garden of Eden. Let’s take a look at GEN: 3:8-10. “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him “where are you?” So he said “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.”

After Adam and Eve sinned they heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Now this was a sound they were familiar with because they recognized that it was God when they heard it. The Bible does not indicate this directly but they must have been familiar with walking with Him in the cool of the day and communing with Him. But when they heard Him on this day Adam’s response was one of fear and he said something very significant …“I hid myself because I was naked and ashamed”.

We hide from the disclosure and exposure that deep relationships bring just like our first father did. Now we have to work and fight for depth in relationships. Genuine depth in relationships is not natural for us as Human beings.


Deep relationships are not automatic either. We have to be intentional about overcoming our own fears, insecurities and reluctance to let people get close to us. And at the same time we must be intentional about gradually and slowly proving to others who have the same fears and insecurities that they can trust us. Make no mistake this approach to relationships takes a great deal of work to be sure.