Salon: Hard Wired for Relationships

Have you ever wondered why you long for intimate friendships? It's because you were hard wired for them.In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, to be like ourselves. So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them”. Because God is our creator, our maker, we by nature have some of his attributes, his characteristics.One of the attributes we pick up from God is his relationality. Genesis 1:26 said, “Let us make mankind in our image.” That word “our” tells us something about God. God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4) but Scripture also teaches God is three persons in one, the Father, Son and Spirit. And in Scripture we see the three persons of the trinity interacting but more than that, they are part of one another – Jesus said, if you have seen the Father you’ve seen me, I am in the Father and the Father is in me (John 14). And the Spirit is called both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Theologians use the word Perichoresis to describe this – it’s a word that means mutual indwelling. The three members of the godhead mutually indwell one another.Again, the Godhead is not just in interaction with one another, they are one with each other. God, by his very nature, exists in relationship. He is never apart from relationship. It is who he is. If God, by nature, exists in relationship, wouldn’t it make since that we, who were made in his image, were made to be in relationship too?This knowness that God intended and we so long for, we see it in the trinity, and we see modeled among humans in Genesis 1 and 2. Purity among humanity. Purity of knowness prior to sin. Gen. 1 & 2, man and woman, same yet diverse, they looked at one another and recognized “I’m more like you than any other creature on earth” there’s unity and diversity…and we got glimpse of their relationship, they were vulnerable, intimate, there’s no sense of trust being broken, taking advantage or of being abused. They are on mission together; they got purpose (to rule; reproduce; and represent.)There’s life in them and being brought forth by and through them. When we see them we see a glimpse of the relationship of humanity, what we were made for, prior to sin, this relationship in the garden that reflects the triune relationship. Why is this important to know? So we can understand why we yearn for relationships, deep relationships with others. It’s what we were made for…known ness with others.