The last few years I’ve been reluctant to dedicate myself fully
to any one relationship. Commitment
scared me. It still kinda does. Putting great effort and thought into a
relationship and building an attachment to that individual leaves one vulnerable
to heartbreak. Whether it’s a spouse,
family member, or friend, all relationships will go through some suffering,
usually by death, divorce, or separation. After experiencing this more than once in my
own life, I feared the inevitable destiny that all relationships will end at
death, and I didn’t want to go through the suffering again. If I were just able to un-attach emotionally
to all relationships I wouldn’t have to suffer.
Believe me, I got good at it. I
prevented myself from getting over-emotional and suppressed my feelings. I was indeed able to limit my suffering. If there was any indication that I was in the
midst of suffering, I just left before it escalated. Flight was my response.
But I felt hollow. It’s
unfulfilling, doing life this way. Later
I came to understand that through my suffering I learned the greatest lessons
in life and ultimately found greater beauty in life itself. If I prevented myself from ever suffering
again through fear I wouldn’t come to deeper truths and the world’s captivating
beauty would dim. Thankfully I’ve been
blessed with the desire to know greater truths.
I’m at another breaking point.
I’m encouraged for another major breakthrough, and it may take me
putting down the guard I have built up these last few years to come to know it.
One word that has repeatedly exposed itself to me the last
few days is dedication. This goes on the lines of my latest blog. Habits are reformed through dedication and hard
work, not by merely wishing for change. The
best things are what we’ve worked for, not for what comes easily. Dedication spats in the face of difficulties. Dedication loves the combat. And the most important battleground of
dedication: relationships.
There’s a reason Jesus emphasized the love of your
neighbor. Humans are innately relational,
common to mammals but distinctive from fish and reptiles. With the formation of the analytical mind,
humans bring relationships and attachment to a level beyond their mammalian
counterparts. Attachment is much greater;
so is the suffering. Our minds are
powerful, and they can either be accommodating or abusive to our well-being. With our human distinction we have a greater
chance of suffering, but we also have a greater opportunity to love deeply.
Although I feel like I’ve advanced the last few years in
understanding the deeper aspects of my own self, I’ve lost touch with the
virtuous characteristics that defined my rise to this awareness in the first
place. Relationships enabled a greater
awareness of myself relative to the world around me and a closer relationship
with God. Jesus said the two greatest
commandments were love God and love people.
1 John 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we
love one another God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.“ It is through love of the fellow man that we
come to a greater awareness of God. It’s
through our social interaction with each other that we discover who God is and
relatively who we are. A personal interpretation
of the two greatest commandments follows.
1)
Love God. Personal and mystical experience of God. By
knowing God we know ourselves. I
consider this present Mongolian journey primarily a personal one.
2)
Love your
neighbor. Social experience of God. Discovering
God in others. Social interaction,
testing of the spirits discovered in personal experiences. Learning to be an expression of love gained
(Love is God). Where traits of the character are developed
and where virtues get stronger. The
nurturing of our species.
The
social experience of God may be progressive or limiting, depending on who we
interact with and how we respond to the interaction. Relationships
are the outward expressions of an inward reality.
Self-actualization is not abandoning your relationships. It instead takes those relationships and
discovers greater truths about oneself and the Divine. Relationships compliment the self-actualizing
experience. Often they’re formed on the low
frequencies of the feeling of incompleteness, and the individual is stuck
battling these feelings for most of their life.
It is only overcome by facing it head-on independently. No one can save you: only God’s grace can reveal this salvation to
you.
Relationships could be abusive and weak, but they could also
be empowering. Relationships could lead
to the individual feeling unsatisfied, but relationships could also accelerate the
individual towards self-actualization (and God), once the individual knows who
they are outside of the relationship. The
question that must be answered before diving into any new relationship is: Who are you?
One must understand the greatest commandment before delving into the
second greatest.
The third commandment Jesus gave is one that the church tends
to stress over the first two commandments:
make disciples. This has been the
church’s backbone of survival for years.
Expressing thoughts are the only way of preserving them. This is a huge difficulty when preserving
memories in family history research. All
the memories experienced by our ancestors will be forgotten if they’re not recorded
or communicated to the next generations.
Even then they often become diluted.
Most memories have been lost forever.
We are all disciples of something. It’s part of our human nature to express
ourselves. Experiences are mostly had
knowing we are going to share them with somebody else. If we weren’t disciples of anything we would fundamentally
be fruitless and unproductive. We would go
through life never realizing our great potential. Have you already reached your maximum
potential? Maybe if you did you wouldn’t
be alive.
The question to the reader is this: What are you being a disciple of? What message are you broadcasting? What truth is going to live on in this world
after you die? Don’t fear
suffering. It will inescapably
come. Learn to ride the waves of the
storm to the island of paradise.
“Count
it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know
that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness
have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in
nothing.”
1 James 1:2-4
“You don't develop courage by being
happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult
times and challenging adversity.”
Epicurus
“There is no better than adversity.
Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own
lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”
Malcolm X
“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for
wise men say it is the wisest course.”
William Shakespeare
“True friendship is a plant of slow
growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is
entitled to the appellation.”
George Washington
“Life is truly known only to those who
suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.”
Anais Nin
“Brave men rejoice in adversity, just
as brave soldiers triumph in war.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“God
brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.”
John Aughey
“Bygone
troubles are good to tell.”
Yiddish Proverb
“Dear
friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves
has been born of God and knows God. Whoever
does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8
“There
is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do
with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
“’Teacher, which is the greatest commandment
in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as
yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.’”
Matthew 22:36-40
“And
we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for
those who are called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28
“And
after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called
you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen,
and establish you.”
1 Peter 5:10
"If
you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
“We
have no right to ask when sorrow comes, "Why did this happen to me?"
unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our
way.”
Author Unknown
“I
know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He
didn't trust me so much.”
Mother Teresa
“We
acquire the strength we have overcome.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If
you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.”
Frank A. Clark
“The
problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting
otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.”
Theodore Rubin
“Sometimes
in tragedy we find our life's purpose - the eye sheds a tear to find its focus.”
Robert Brault
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Smooth
seas do not make skillful sailors.”
African Proverb
