Relationships intrigue me for many different reasons. I can recall a time when I was younger that I wanted to be a counselor and over the years the interest in people and their relationships with others still interest me. I guess that is why I am forever reading books about relationships. I have just finished reading Relationships: A Mess Worth Making by Paul Tripp and Tim Lane. This book is definetly a keeper!
Think about the title. . . what comes to mind when you think of relationships? Romance, friendship, family. This book addresses many of these realtionships from a biblical standpoint. Now look at the the rest of the title, A Mess Worth Making. What is the "mess?" Tripp and Lane expalin the mess is the sin in our lives. The "worth" is God at work in our relationships.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is about how sin in our lives effects our relationships.
The problem with relationships is that they all take place right smack dab in the middle of something, and that something is the story of redemption, God's plan to turn everything in our lives into instruments of Christlike change and growth. You and I never get to be married to a fully sanctified spouse. We will never be in a relationship with a completely mature friend. We will never live next to a neighbor utterly free of the need to grow and change. We will never have self-parenting children. We will never be near people who always think, desire, say, or do the right things. And the reason for all of this is that our relationships are lived between the already and the not yet. (pg.2)
One of my favorite chapters in the book was the chapter on mercy. Tripp and Lane explain that a relationship without mercy is a relationship lived outside biblical borders. A quote from the chapter tells us God's point of view on mercy.
From God's point of view, one of the most beneficial aspects of mercy is that it levels the playing field. Mercy forces us all to face the fact that we need it. None of us has the spiritual upper hand. In our struggle with sin, we all need compassion, sympathy, forgiveness, and rescue. All of us are poor in some way, lacking things we desperately need. Each of us lives with weakness and the results of our own poor choices. But even when we seem to have it right, even when we are committed to live in mercy, we struggle to love the very people we have looked on with sympathy. And even while we are basking in God's forgivenss, we find it incredibily difficult to bear with the sin and weakness of others. That's why, in the mirror of mercy, all us look the same. (pg.134-135)
In that same chapter they state that giving mercy always demands mercy.
When you extend mercy, you will begin to see how selfish, impatient, unforgiving, and inconsistent you can be. Mercy will show you how much your own heart still needs the continuing work of the Redeemer. It will drive you to the end of yourself and to the grace of your merciful Savior. And that is a very good thing. (pg 140)
Now you will have to read the rest of the book to see how God can make messy relationships what he designed them to be.
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