We make the mistake in thinking, "to survive life we can't trust anyone." As a result many adopt the "turtle philosophy." They pull in their head and arms and legs for protection and don't come out again. This sometimes happens metaphorically and sometimes it happens almost literally. Either way it is the turtle philosophy that drives us inside. God hates this mentality. Genesis 2:18(NLT) tells us that the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Yet we live in a shell and conjure up a fake version of ourselves. We don't even know who we are, since we are meant to exist in relationship to other people.
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We live in a performance driven society. When we're not hiding "inside," we perform for the people around us. If we think that we may not perform well, we take performance enhancing drugs to ensure that the job is done right. When we leave a party, a meeting, a sporting event, or even the job we work at every day, if we are still free of the enhancing drugs, we often think, "thank god, that is over," because we have had to perform through out the event or all through the day.
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Galatians 1:10 (NLT) Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant..
Like the Apostle Paul, we must become free of people in order to be who we really are. We are called to love people and not perform for them. Only when we're free from people will we move from performance to love. In all our relationships there is no performance needed; only love. When we walk in love, we can move forward unprotected. No we can't move blindly along like the turtle moving blindly across the road through traffic, but neither can we keep pulling in our heads whenever we come upon other people. Nor can we start the performance of yet another "road show." We must learn to be who we are for all to see. Who is inside that shell?
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~ rachman
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I recently heard a talk about this issue of love and trust that rather jolted me and made me reconsider much of my thinking and relationships. They said the Bible teaches that we should trust no one but God but that we should love everyone. Much of our problems come from trusting our heart to untrustworthy people who abuse it. On the other hand, if we look to God with our heart and perceive our identity and value from His view of us we can be immune to anything people may throw at us and still be able to love them.
ReplyDeleteOf course it helps a lot to unpack the meaning that we have for these words. Part of the problem many of us have in discussing things is that we have different assumptions for the words that we use.
I did enjoy your thoughts here.
Hi C.F.
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming by. And thank you for sharing about trust and love. It did jolt me at first, but I see your point. It makes a lot of sense.
A man I know trusts too readily and too freely, by my way of thinking at least. Yet he is one of the most loving people I know. I strive to emulate him as he emulates Jesus. I think that he trys to be led by God as to who he can trust this far or that much, etc. He has made mistakes he admits.
I'm not sure but I think we have to "test the waters" so to speak. We learn who we can trust or not. It is a growing process where we come to know people in greater depth as time goes by. Obviously I'm still learning "my own self."
Regardless I'm glad you come by and share with me, my friend. You seem to be a man who strives to love people in general and "the Body" in particular.
Blessings on you, my friend,
~ r.