This post is from a small booklet, Understanding Who You Are by Larry Crabb. It is rich in God-centered wisdom—a classic piece of literature that you will refer to throughout your life.
When we probe beneath the surface of relationships into our attitudes toward ourselves and others, we discover that we tend to think of people (ourselves included) as little more than “useful things” which sometimes get broken and need to be fixed. Of course, we know better. We know that because we were created for relationships, we struggle with intangible realities that cannot be put back in order. To make relationships work, we need courage more than repair and love more than insight. At some level, we all know that.
But still we approach the business of living in much the same way that a plumber inspects a leaky faucet: find the problem that is blocking proper functioning and fix it.
We do not want to believe that we are relational. It is so much easier to assume that beneath our desires for relating to others, we are really mechanical things that can be fixed if something goes wrong in our lives. To accept the truth that we are inescapably relational in a world where no one loves perfectly drives us to see that life, as we know it, is tragic. It forces us to admit that we are not safe.
The only sensible action in an unsafe, tragic world, we reason, is to devote our deepest energies to avoiding pain and to relieving whatever pain we cannot avoid. Ask the dentist for more Novocaine when the drill touches a nerve. Pull up the blanket on a chilly night. Walk away from a conversation with someone who is demeaning or, if possible, find a way to gain the upper hand. Work hard to be comfortable.
But despite our best efforts to avoid and relieve pain, a deep level of hurt remains that we cannot escape. If we maintain our commitment to minimize pain (a commitment served well by a mechanical view of ourselves), we will be required to numb our longings, to pretend we want less than we really do. And, at the same time we cut the nerves that cause us pain, we destroy all hope of joy.
It is true that we’re never entirely successful in cutting off the nerve endings in our souls. At some level, we still desperately want what we were built to enjoy. So we sometimes smother the lingering evidence of desire beneath whatever passion feels immediately stronger than the deeper longings within. And that effort leads either to depression or addiction. We become dull and relationally dead, or frantic and irresistibly drawn to whatever replaces pain with pleasure, if even for a moment.
We are relational, not mechanical.
That means we hurt in ways that cannot be fixed. It also means that our only hope is to develop a relationship with someone who can support us in our pain, someone who will lift us to a sphere of living where something matters more than pain, until a day when we will hurt no more.
If we realize that we are relational beings, then the awareness of struggle in our lives will lead us to evaluate the quality of our relationships—our relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves. As we look in that direction (rather than searching for something to fix), we will be drawn into an awareness of a paralyzing terror and an enraged determination: “No one is doing for me what needs to be done, so I’ll handle life on my own.” When we enter the reality of terrifying aloneness, and when we sense the presence of a clenched fist that angrily declares our intention to survive, we will be either destroyed or drawn to God in a deepening relationship.
Handling the problems of life well requires that we wrestle with the central issues of our existence as people who were designed for perfect relationships that do not exist, except among the three Persons of the Trinity. Treating these issues as though they were either psychological packages of self-hatred or low self-esteem that can be unwrapped and fixed or spiritual deficiencies (like poor self-discipline) that can be corrected by mere effort will never help us come to grips with the central concerns of life. It will never lead us to that earnest search for God that is rewarded with the relationship our hearts desire.
We were created to enter into relationships and to enjoy them as our highest calling. To do so, we must learn what it means to face the terrors of existence in a life outside the Garden of Eden, where nothing is safe, and to realize how our tightly clenched fist waves in an angry determination to survive.
There is nothing broken to be fixed. But there is a terrible reality to be faced, a determination to be abandoned, and a new life to be discovered. We are relational, not mechanical.
Dr. Larry Crabb
was the founder/director of NewWay Ministries, a well-known psychologist, conference and seminar speaker, Bible teacher, and popular author. He was scholar in residence at Colorado Christian University and visiting professor of spiritual formation for Richmont Graduate University.
