Your Primary Relationship

Humans are needy.  While it is seldom a conscious process, most of us develop what we might call a primary relationship.  It might be a parent/child relationship, employer/employee, teacher/student, or mentor/protege.  Most frequently in adulthood, it is marriage or some less formal modern counterpart that is drafted into service.

Television rating services have discovered something they call the “LOP.”  That is the "Least Objectionable Program."  When there’s nothing worth watching on the tube, TV addicts flip around the dial until they find the LOP.

In relationships, we tend to look for the one that causes us the least pain and hang our hopes on it.  By late adolescence, most of us have seen flaws in our parents, pastors and teachers which limit the depth of the relationship we want to have with them.  Surging hormones and emotional needs conspire to drive us to our peers.  From among them we select the one who is most responsive to us.  Since at that stage of life all of us are experiencing similar needs, mutual fulfillment is not too difficult to find.

Part of the process of idealizing this relationship is its formalization by state and/or church.  We look to it to have physical and emotional needs met, to generate joy and to give us a general sense of well-being.  Sooner or later, to a greater or lesser degree, the wonderful person to whom we have given ourselves will disappoint us.  For some, it will be a mild irritant.  For others, it will mark the beginning of a grinding progression through frustration, bitterness, anger and hate.

The reason I’ve used the term “primary relationship” is that all others are secondary to it.  They are all affected by it.  Let’s look at the effects of a negative primary relationship.  The first person affected by a soured relationship is ourselves.  Life becomes a burden, joy goes and beauty loses her charm.  We become jaded and cynical.  Some of us become experts at raining on parades and bursting bubbles of happiness, just to help others experience the same level of misery we know so well.  Frequently, our words are sour on our tongues before we ever speak them but we justify spreading pain because of our own hurt.

Others are also affected, most significantly the one on whom we’d set our hopes for fulfilment and happiness.  Most of our barbs are loosed at them.  We become slick at couching our verbal artillery in humour so that only the target is aware of the war and the spectators just think we’re witty.  The initial disappointment becomes a downward spiral of attack, withdrawal, heightened dissatisfaction, renewed assault and deeper retreat.  Innocent bystanders are often wounded in the fray.  We snap at our children, growl at co-workers, and spread unease and discomfort among those we hardly know.

One of the most frightening things about a misplaced primary relationship is the ease with which we slide into blaming the “other” for everything, including our sin.  We excuse our wicked thoughts, evil speech and bad behaviour by making someone else responsible.  “You drove me to this!” we think, each time we see them in our mind’s eye.  “I wouldn’t be sinning like this if you didn’t treat me this way.”  To hear it spelled out like this makes it seem ridiculous. But to see our sin excused to ourselves with this kind of moral dodge brings shame.

God, above all others, suffers blasphemous abuse in the situation.  He is frequently seen as the root cause of all our grief.  After all, He could have had us born into another family.  He could have made us fall in love with someone else.  He could have arranged a different school or place of employment so we wouldn’t be exposed to this source of disappointment and pain.  Even when we succeed in giving the appearance of accepting our situation and truly loving God, we secretly hide away the idea that God is responsible.  He is responsible and either He doesn’t care about us or lacks the power to help us.  Emotional pain can drive a child of God to consider the most outrageous blasphemy.

Is there a way to manipulate or coerce the one who has disappointed us into satisfying our needs?  No.  They are what they are.  Most of us are such demanding, intractable souls that no amount of effort on their part would ever be enough, even if they did try to placate us.  We must face a solemn fact:  One human relationship is not going to meet all our needs, indulge all our wants, and gratify all our whims.  This “other” (spouse, parent, child, teacher, employer, pastor, or whoever) will continue to let us down if we look to them to meet all our needs.

We must finally learn that disappointment in human relationships is inevitable.  Even if the other person were perfect, our own sin would be enough to contaminate the relationship in such a way that complete fulfilment would be impossible.  However, it is not enough to learn that fact alone.  There is a companion to it which turns everything around:  ultimate satisfaction is inevitable in a proper relationship with God.

I have compiled a little list of things mentioned in the Psalms.  The psalmists saw God as their source of joy, gladness and rejoicing, hope, strength, refreshment (springs) refuge and shelter because God was the object of their trust.  

• Ps 5:11 - "Let those also who love Your name be joyful in You"
• Ps 9:2 - "I will be glad and rejoice in You."
• Ps 33:22 - "We hope in You."
• Ps 56:3 - "Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You."
• Ps 84:5 - "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You."
• Ps 141:8 - "In You I take refuge."
• Ps 143:9 - "In You I take shelter."

Let’s think this through.  If our primary relationship affects all others, and if all human relationships are doomed to disappointment sooner or later, and if a right relationship with God always ends in perfect fulfilment, logic demands that we make our relationship with God our primary one.  This is a crucial point.  The switch happens intellectually in a moment.  It takes a little longer for the emotions to catch up, especially if the negative aspects of the former relationship have ingrained long-standing habits.

However, as soon as we commit, the results begin to show almost immediately.  That is mostly because a right relationship with God brings its own rewards, even in the face of deep suffering.  The peace of God passes knowledge, but it is very real.  Real enough to turn around years of misplaced emphasis.

Life may still be a challenge but it is no longer a burden.  Joy rises unexpected to meet us and the very things that once soured us, thrill us.  This sounds rhapsodic and perhaps a little reality will drive the point home.  For one whose primary relationship is matrimony, pitfalls abound.  Weddings become loathsome because they remind her of how her own problems started.  A beautiful flower prompts only thoughts of her rejected attempts at showing love.  Expressive music suggests situations where physical or emotional needs were disregarded.  No wonder people cry at weddings!

Once the shift is made in the object of the primary relationship, we look to God in His sovereign goodness and love to bring fulfilment.  Even when the situation does not change, simply looking at it from a different vantage point can bring blessed relief from the personal gloom and cynicism.  We get to a point where we can share another’s joy.  The beauty of nature is seen for what it is, without the sting of personal rejection.  Creative expression can lift the soul because our most important relationship is with the great Creator himself and not with another fallen creature.

One of the greatest improvements in human relationships comes to the former primary one.  Releasing a person from the responsibility we’ve laid on them to be and give everything we need is real liberation.  The old downward spiral is free to become an upward one of reaching out, appreciation, and increased intimacy.  The joy of truly happy people is infectious.  When we are truly enjoying our relationship with God, others will be touched by it.

Without a doubt, the best thing about having your primary relationship with God is that that is exactly the way it should be.  To put anyone higher than Him in your priorities just doesn’t work because it is sin.  To give Him first place and look only to Him to meet your needs restores the relationship broken by sin.  It is tremendously liberating.  Instead of being the cause of all our grief, God becomes the source of all our joy.

Of course God uses human relationships to meet some of our needs but our relationship with Him must be the one that affects the others and not vice versa.  We joyfully accept the ministrations of others as blessings from God himself and refuse to make anyone else responsible for our happiness.  No one consciously decides to abandon his or her relationship with God for a human one.  It sneaks up on us.  So it’s good to check up on ourselves frequently.

How is it with you today?  Are you looking to God for the comfort, joy, strength or whatever else you need?  If you’re like most of us, you’ve already learned that other people always fail us.  They come up short.  We will be disappointed.  In God, however, there is no disappointment.

Ron Hughes
© November 2008