12Therefore, as
God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each
other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive
as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all
these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15Let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to
peace. And be thankful. 16Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your
hearts to God. 17And whatever you
do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:12-17
Often it seems that we want to be involved with perfect people. "You're too..." or "You're not...enough" we say. We may not always verbalise it but we can easily give that impression. Maybe we think "I just can't deal with you and your issues now!" Funny thing is, if these people did become perfect we'd want to spend even less time with them because their lives would reflect badly on us! Haha
I've been thinking about intimacy and closeness lately and I reckon we miss out on the opportunity to grow and develop in real genuine closeness with people because we distance ourselves from them waiting until they become "better" (or even until we become better!). If we look at the closest people to us in our lives, I think that we'll find that they are that close to us because we were together during difficult times and came out stronger on the other side. We have a deep and special love for the people in our lives who've stuck by us even when we were being stupid! There's a warmth in our hearts for people that we've seen grow through tough situations and come out on the other side!
Let's look at our relationship with God (for those of us who have one). We develop a deep sense of trust and vulnerability with Him not because He waited till we were perfect to speak to us but because He walks with us while we struggle. We can look at areas of our lives that would be in tatters without Him. Romans 5:8 says "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us." Over the years He's shown Himself faithful even when we've been faithless and this has caused us to grow in intimacy with Him. Intimacy with Him leads us to greater vulnerability as trust is developed which then leads into greater intimacy and so on. Intimacy is developed through process. Intimacy is developed on the road.
Those same people that we love because of hard times we shared, we probably also love because we remember incredibly fun adventures we've had together as well! We've shared jokes that no-one else understands! We've laughed until our faces hurt! The passage from Colossians talks about bearing with one another and this leading us to greater unity and bringing us peace. This means getting involved in the nitty gritty of each others' lives even when it's not so convenient. You can probably think of people in your life who've sacrificed time to spend it with you. You love them! Admit it!
The most fantastic husbands and wives that I know have a deep intimacy that is impenetrable by anyone else because they've basically grown together as close as two people can without becoming one person. I once read a quote that said some thing like "God help the man who won't marry until he finds the perfect woman, and God help him still if he finds her!" I think sometimes searching for perfection in the people we associate with robs us of the glory of growing together and being the ones to draw greatness out of each other. The Bible says "as iron sharperns iron, so one man sharpens another." Let's look deeper than the surface for what can be sharpened by love.
Read through the Colossians passage again and plan with God how you can grow in intimacy with others and with Him.
Thanks for reading.
