Relationship Ingredients: Love + Time

Over the past fifty years, relationships have been stretched and pulled out of shape to the point where they no longer resemble what they once did, which begs the question; what is a relationship supposed to look like? In a previous post titled “When it hurts to love”, I talked about God’s blueprint for how we are supposed to love one another because of the way He loves us, but there is another ingredient that is often left out; time. In our culture where everything is constantly becoming quicker and easier to access, it is becoming harder and harder to find people willing to put forth the time and effort necessary for a good relationship.

God’s relationship with us was so important that He gave up His rights as God for a while to come heal us; think about that for a minute. This is the God who can do anything, and more. He spoke the world into existence; so why didn’t He just say a few words to bridge the gap between Him and us? He created every law of physics and nature; would it have been so hard to bend a few rules or create a few new ones to solve the problem? He gave up Heaven’s throne to show us how much He loves us, and to give us an example of how to love the people around us. Love isn’t a warm, fuzzy feeling; it’s a decision we make and a commitment we carry out.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. Similarly, people don’t care how much I love them until I show them, and that takes time; time with God learning how to love, and time with people putting that knowledge into practice.

One last sobering thought I’ve had running through my head lately; if somebody was to take a look at how much time and energy I give to my relationship with God, what would they see?

Yeah, I don’t really want to think about that.

Relationships take time and effort, and the amount of time and energy I am willing to invest in them says how important they are to me.