Posts Tagged ‘relationship’

Fight or Yield?

{ July 27, 2008 @ 10:59 am } · { Music/Links, Musings }
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Every time someone touches us, we immediately have a choice: fight or yield? Interestingly enough, the answer to that question depends entirely on our evaluation of the situation.

For example, if some random guy off the street came up to me and began to smooth my hair, I’d likely fight. But the same action, from someone like my parents, my siblings, or a good friend, would find me yielding. My evaluation of the situation would be different based on my perception of relationship and intention.

Similarly, consider this: the only thing that differentiates the act of marital intimacy from the crime of rape is the recipient’s evaluation of relationship and intention. Within a marriage, this is consensual. Forced, it becomes a crime.

Often, we fight the touches that are best for us-the ones that want to help us. There is a scene in the movie Deja Vu that illustrates this point: a federal officer, played by Denzel Washington, has found a kidnapping victim and tries to untie her wrists, but she has a hood over her head. Thinking he’s her kidnapper, she fights him. “Don’t fight me; I’m here to help you,” he tells her after identifying himself. Later, she still doesn’t believe him and even pulls a gun on him. All the while, though, he tried to convince her that he really was trying to help her. Similarly, in the movie The Princess Bride, Buttercup repeatedly fights Westley while he is disguised in black. She didn’t know who he was, and therefore didn’t correctly evaluate his intentions.

Every one of us wants our actions to be received, not rejected. We don’t want to be fought, we want others to accept and yield to our actions. Rejection hurts; it’s no fun, and we don’t want it. And get this: God feels the same way.

God doesn’t want to be rejected or fought any more than you or I. Often, though, we misevaluate His intentions and fight Him. But in reality, He wants to love us, help us, and protect us.

This is a great song by Tenth Avenue North to illustrate this point. I first heard it about a week ago, and have been mulling it over ever since.

By Your Side

Tenth Avenue North

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don’t turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I’m not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

‘Cause I’ll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don’t fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world’s sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

(Chorus 2x)

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I’ll never let you go

Names

{ July 21, 2008 @ 1:09 pm } · { Musings }
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Names are very powerful. They embody your whole identity in just a few syllables.

Using a person’s name in face-to-face conversation is a fairly deep and special thing. Most of us walk around having conversations without ever using the other person’s name, and most of those conversations are everyday business or small talk. But think of when we do use someone’s name in our conversation:

  • When we want to single them out to begin a conversation
  • When we want to make it clear that we are speaking just to them
  • When we want to show them that we value them highly
  • When we love them so much that their very name is music

In my own life, I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve come to value someone very highly, to desire their friendship and desire to show them love, I tend to look them in the face and call them by name. If a man opens a door for me, that’s something I value. Typically, I’ll look that man in the face and thank him by name, if i know it, to show him I value not only his action, but him as a person. If a girl is talking with me, I often look her in the face and use her name to show her how much I value her.

So, as my speech teacher might ask, who cares? Why does any of this matter?

In the Bible it says that God not only knew us before we were born, but He calls us by name as His sheep. So far, we’ve already determined that indicates value. But there’s more.

In the Old Testament, Israelites couldn’t speak or even write God’s name. God was considered so holy and distant that His name couldn’t be pronounced. But now, through Jesus, we find that not only can we speak or write God’s name, we can call Him Abba (Father, the familiar form). We can write it without a dash in the middle. God isn’t any less holy, but our relationship has changed. In European societies in earlier days, people did not address each other by their first names until they had received permission to do so. They called each other by their title and last names: Mr. Smith, Miss/Mrs. Jones. Still today, in most romance languages, there is are formal and familiar forms of address: in Spanish usted is the formal and tú is the familiar. Here’s the beautiful part: in Spanish, when you pray, you address God as Tú, not Usted. God has taken on the familiar. He’s invited us to use His first name.

In the Old testament it also indicates that man could not see God’s face. The Israelites couldn’t be close or intimate with God; they essentially had to lower their eyes in His presence. But now, under the new covenant, it’s as though God is saying, “Come ahead, look Me in the eyes and call out to Me by name…Let Me look into you eyes and call your name…I want a relationship with you, and we can now connect in a way that wasn’t possible before.”

God desires our intimacy and friendship more than anything else. He wants to have us call Him by name.