Part One

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making
by Timothy S. Lane, M. Div., D. Min., Paul D. Tripp

We had just moved to a new home and we were far from being settled. Life on every side seemed complicated and chaotic. Our schedule seemed ridiculously demanding. Our children ranged in ages from two to eleven and they all seemed out of sorts. The weeks went by so fast that it seemed like I started putting on my trousers on Monday and it was Saturday before I got them zipped up!

Sure, we had family worship every morning and a fairly relaxed family dinner in the evening. We were dedicated to doing things as a family, but it all just seemed like a stressed-filled blur of duty. My wife and I tried to spend time together as a couple, but we hardly communicated any enthusiasm for our relationship. We were exhausted and had allowed irritation and impatience to come between us.

I had just been elected to do a late-night run to the grocery store because, once again, we had little to put in the children's lunches for school the next day. I finished shopping and was waiting for the light to turn green so I could make my way home, when I began to think what it would be like to be single! I'm serious. I was completely overwhelmed and discouraged with the most important relationships in my life, and I wondered how I could successfully deal with what was on my plate.

The minute the thought crossed my mind, I was horrified. I love my children and I am privileged to know and be loved by my wife. I wouldn't want to live a second without them. But at that moment, those relationships seemed so difficult and demanding. I loved my family, but that night in the car I hit the wall of the reality of relationships in a fallen world.

Everyone has hit that wall called, "Why bother with other people?" We reach points in our relationships where we wonder if they are worth it. A wife decides it's not worth opening up to her husband anymore. An employee goes to work, shuts his door, and only comes out when it is time to go home. A teenager comes home from school and goes to his room until he is cajoled to join the family for dinner. Someone probably dropped out of a small group this week because she didn't think it was worth the hassle. Family gatherings are reduced to people sharing the same geographical space, devoid of any meaningful relationship. The church meeting becomes a formality with little or no attempt to share in the lives of others. Neighbors live side by side for years, but no one knows anything significant about the other.

What do all of these people and scenarios have in common? They have all faced the difficulty of having relationships with flawed people in a broken world and they have opted to check out. Is this a valid response? Is it okay to keep to ourselves so that we don't get hurt and don't hurt anyone else? What's wrong with playing it safe?

Yet something keeps dragging us back to other people. We know we are less than human when we are all alone. Why does the employee who works in isolation wonder what others are doing outside his office? Why is the teenager jealous when he sees his parents pay attention to his brother or sister when he made the decision to shut them out? Why does the person who chose to live apart from others describe his experience in terms of "loneliness"?

We live with this tension between self-protective isolation and the dream for meaningful relationships. Where are you on the continuum right now? Are you moving away from others because of a recent hurt? Are you moving towards others because you have been alone too long? What tendency do you observe in your life? Do you typically move in the direction of isolation or immersion? Do you tend towards independence or co-dependence? Every relational decision we make is moving in one of these directions. We are tempted to make a relationship either less or more than it was intended to be. Without a biblical model to explain the place relationships should have in your life, you will likely experience imbalance, confusion, conflicting desires, and general frustration. You just don't know how to navigate the minefield. Even the best relationships can surprise you with the challenges they present.

© 2007 by Timothy S. Lane, Paul D. Tripp. Excerpt used with permission of New Growth Press, Greensboro, NC.

About the Author

Dr. Lane is a counselor and a faculty member at CCEF and lecturer in Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the co-author of Relationships: A Mess Worth Making and How People Change. He and his wife, Barbara, have two daughters and two sons.