RELATIONSHIPS – BROKEN FOREVER?

by | Jan 10, 2012 | 2012 | 0 comments

Last week my husband and I did something unusual.

We went for a drive out to the towns of Somerset West and Strand, about 50kms from our home. Driving outside of our regular destinations – local friends, supermarkets, doctors, dentists, libraries and the beach – is a rare thing for us. Roadworks, heavy traffic and the price of petrol tend to limit the amount of driving we do – to say nothing of our car which dates back to last century.

But I had a sudden desire to visit the town where my children grew up, and where I lived for 25 years. There were so many memories of friends who lived there, church members who had moved to other places and other fellowships, the primary and high schools my children attended, and the beautiful view across False Bay.

As we drove around the familiar spots, I thought of the people with whom I had lost touch. There was the elderly widow who lived next door, and eventually sold her house and moved into an old age home. I never really got to know her well. We drove past a house which was once a pre-school where my children spent many happy hours.  The signboard saying Happy Days Nursery School with a picture of Noddy and a telephone number, had been replaced with a Security Company board, and where once a neat hedge surrounded the house , there was now a high wall with spikes on top. I never knew what happened to the cheerful little teacher who ran the school. I never bothered to keep in touch with her after making use of her services. And what about the two church families I got to know really well ? I’m not sure where either of them is now.

But that’s life, isn’t it?  We get to know people, become friends, and somehow we get disconnected and move on. Sadly, this happens in families as well. Even now I have close family members who never speak to each other – not because they’re not on speaking terms – but because they have little in common. If they get together at all, it’s likely to be at a funeral.  

Of course, there are many reasons for this interruption of relationships – the ease of travel, emigration, divorce, and a string of other reasons. In many ways it is a ‘wonderful world’ as the old song says, but at times I long for the old days when mothers, fathers and children stayed together as a family unit, where cousins, nieces and nephews all saw each other regularly. It seems those days are gone forever, but are they?

We cannot move away

As Christians we already experience a relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and we can be sure of one thing. This relationship will not ‘move on’ and disappear. Even if we as weak and imperfect human beings allow our side of the relationship to drop, God will not move away from us. He will never just let us go. Indeed he will actively seek us out and bring us back. So many of Jesus’ parables are about searching for lost things – the lost son, the lost coin, the lost sheep (Luke 15). He will always love us, and try as we might, we cannot move away from him.  

But even now, with God’s love given to us through the Holy Spirit, we can reach out to others who we would otherwise have ignored, or disliked.   We can start the reconciliation process where relationships have been awkward or unsatisfactory, and with God’s love flowing from us, have a foretaste of what he has promised in the future – complete restoration of all things, relationships included.

But what about those broken relationships, the family fall-outs and disagreements, where one or both parties simply refuse to listen or turn back? Can they ever be restored?  
I believe that is exactly what God has promised us.

Jesus spoke to his disciples about the renewal of all things (Matthew 19:28).  Peter, after the healing of the crippled beggar at the temple gate, took advantage of the situation by witnessing to these onlookers. He pointed to Jesus, the  power behind the miracle saying, “He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything…(Acts 3:21).”

Paul obviously believed in a resurrection of all the dead. To the Corinthians he said, “For as in Adam all  die, so in Christ all will be made alive ” (1 Corinthians 15:22).  As he stood before Felix the governor, he admitted, “I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked” (Acts 24:15).  God wants all to be saved, the righteous, the wicked, and all those in between.  Jesus came to seek the lost, the broken and the hopeless.

In Revelation 21:5 we read “I am making everything new. Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Do we need any further convincing? I don’t think so. After all, we have his promise in writing.

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