Standing On Solid Ground

Many claim to have unfailing love,
   but a faithful person who can find? – Proverbs 20:6

Today’s Reading: Proverbs 19-21; 2 Corinthians 7

I was playing around on twitter the other day and sent this message out:

“Putting your trust in people is gambling with your heart. It's not a safe bet.”

One of my friends quickly challenged the comment. She said, “but sometimes it’s a gamble worth making.”

We then went back and forth for a while on the topic. I realized that the problem is that my original tweet wasn’t really all that clear. I tried to explain what I meant but 140 characters or less can be quite limiting at times.

Then I came across the scripture above…

In my personal experience, the greatest disappointments have come when I have put too much trust in other people.

No I’m not talking about constructing walls so high and thick that no one ever gets to know who you are. That’s silly and really unhealthy. We should do our best to share ourselves with those that we love.

But what I am talking about is allowing someone to occupy a place in your life that they shouldn’t.

Usually this happens in a dating situation. You meet someone. They seem to be all kinds of incredible in ways that you never could have imagined. You start dating and you get close. You start to think that this is someone that you can open up to and finally you do. You even get past that honeymoon period and start to see the crust of them, you know, those kinda nasty and wack aspects of who they really are. Having seen their imperfections and shortcomings you still love them. In fact you love them even more.

This is a wonderful place to be. I am a firm believer in love. I always think that it is worth the risk to open up to it with the right person. But often times we don’t really stop to think about what this means. What position does this person have in your life? How much power do you allow them to have? How much do you rely on them? Do you at some point lose sight of yourself because you are focusing so intently on them?

For me God is the focus of my life. Growing up I remember hearing my dad constantly talk about the ideal marriage being a man and woman coming together under God. God is the head, the leader that both people are following. The man is not following the woman, nor the woman following the man.

When we tell someone that we love them, most of us mean it. When we say that we will be with that person forever, we mean it when we say it. But people change. People disappoint us and fall short. And this isn’t because they are mean or that they never loved us, but rather it is because we are all imperfect. This imperfection is what cannot be relied upon. We cannot have another human being as the rock, the foundation of our lives; because no matter how great that person is they will not always be there.

Plus that’s too much pressure on them anyway. I mean really, do you want to be the foundation of another person’s life? That’s really not a good look at all when you think about it.

I believe that love is the most important thing we can do in our lives. It is the proving ground of faith in its purest human form. What greater leap of faith is there that we can take than to love someone and decide to share our lives with them?

But this love does not require us to use that other person as the rock that we build our lives upon. We must never lose sight of the fact that those that we chose to love are our partners along life’s journey. They are not the destination.

For me the only leader that I seek to follow in this life is God. With that fact I feel all the more free to open my heart to loving those in my life. Because no matter what happens, I know that the foundation that I am building my life upon is the most solid ground possible.