To Infinity and Beyond!

-

I've never been good at dating relationships. Whenever a relationship is entered that becomes important in your life, it will have the effect of splintering things as they were beforehand. That's just a fact. Friends often feel left out or rejected when a close friend suddenly begins spending all of their time with this new person. It doesn't feel very fair to the person or persons feeling left out. I know. I've been in those sneakers many times. It seems so weird to me now to be in a different position, the positionn of the one entering a special relationship, and I find myself feeling helpless to change how my friends are feeling. Things are different now. How do I explain that so that they do not feel it as a personal attack?

I've been part of so many complaints in my "group" of friends that would come about when and if one of us entered a relationship with someone and stopped hanging out almost completely. I've heard the whining. I've voiced it, too. "Man, one shouldn't forget one's friends. Girlfriends (or boyfriends) come and go, but friends are there forever! Who will they be calling to drink with you into misery when it fails? Us, of course!" The logic is flawed. We live in a culture of futile relationships, and it demonstrates the thinking that leads us into them. Who in our generation gets into a relationship looking for marriage? Who is not deemed crazy for such thinking? Everyone wants to have a few years of experience and safety in a relationship first before they consider "settling down" and getting married. There's always a level of fear in trusting this new person because of the power they might end up having to change your life. Friends are often considered then to be the real long term relationships. They're the stalwart companions. Maybe this is why so many marriages never obtain the level of significance they deserve, and ultimately end up in divorce. People encounter a bump in the road, and they go running back to the only people they know will not desert them.

I remember hearing an adult explain something about this to me once several years ago. I think it was a teacher at school, but I'm not sure. The wisdom of this person's thinking was not lost on me, even though I often argued against it in the past whenn I would gripe and moan about friends suddenly "disappearing". This peice of wisdom went like this: As we grow up, we form friendships to prepare us for the deeper relationship we will have someday with our spouse. Sure, friends often stick around even after a marriage, but they should never be more important. They are the training. The marriage is the real thing. It is not the final exam. It is the career you will have for the rest of your life. The relationship between a man and a woman was designed to be permanent:

So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, '
for she was taken out of man."

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Genesis 2:20-24

I don't want to belittle a single friendship in my life. I don't want to abandon any either. A few minutes ago, a friend and I were chatting online about this very topic. He was arguing that I am becoming lost in my relationship with my Musankisha. Let me share a few lines of our conversation:

My Friend : you do realize you have a life outside of her?
My Friend : this is the only thing that I have seen wrong with this whole situation
My Friend : think about it like this
My Friend : Two tree's grow up next to eachother right?
My Friend : one tree starts to shadow over the other tree
My Friend : the other tree will die from lack of sunlight
ME : that's not what's happening here
My Friend : yes it is
My Friend : you two are growing a relationship.. and it is starting to over shadow your whole life
My Friend : and Im not the only one that sees it bro
My Friend : It doesnt have to affect your whole life fool
My Friend : and it shouldnt effect your whole life
My Friend : your life is God, [Musankisha], and Work
... later on, after I repeatedly tell him he doesn't need to worry so much ...
My Friend : well look man if your happy go for it
My Friend : I just dont want to see you get consumed.. and later hurt

That is very much "spliced" together so that it makes sense, but that is what he was saying. The part where he is saying what my life is right now is supposed to be bad in his view. I guess I wouldn't mind having something else up in there other than "work", but it's at least realistic in that sense. I think that's a decent list of priorities. But, do you notice what he has left absent from that list? Friends. Friends are more important to me than work. But, he's not seeing it that way. He's seeing my focus on God and my Musankisha as a dismissal of friends.

Things change as we grow older. As we become more mature, we start seeking that relationship God has designed us for in both spirit and flesh. I personally think that a marriage is a three person relationship, not a two person one. The third person, in my opinion, is God. It can't be anyone else. People try to substitute it with other things: money, power, fame. Many don't think it exists. I think that it is the correct way of looking at ourselves as a complete creation. We need Christ. The Holy Spirit enters us, and makes us into a new creation. Honestly though, I can not explain it as well as the scripture can. So, here are some verses I think are applicable:

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."


John 17:20-26

After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.


Ephesians 5:29-32

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.


John 15:4-6

I'm going to stop there now. As I said at the beginning, I am not an expert. I'm a stsumbling blithering fool when it comes to these things. But, I am trying to understand. I want to do things God's way. So, if you have any comments or advice (I would think lots of people might...), I would love to hear it. It you want to list marital status (M or S) or anything else indicating whether you have experience in these things and how much, that would be pretty cool in trying to absorb your thoughts on this topic.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

- Confucius

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.

- Aesop

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

- C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves

God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.

- C.S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain

Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

- C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves