The fabric of our lives

Relationship is what the kingdom of God is all about. God wants our relationship with Him open, free, and honest, and He wants our relationships with each other to be the same. When God created mankind, He had in mind a relationship that was as equal as creation and Creator could get. He made us in His image, so all the emotions, desires for love and acceptance, our need to have things be balanced and rightly done around us---they all come from an image that He stamped on us that mirrored His own. Our emotions and reactions are not as crazy as they may seem b/c when you think about it, they are the same ones God has towards us, minus the ever present sin issue that brings a selfishness into the equation God simply does not have. Relationship is paramount to God and when relationship between brothers is broken, God's heart is broken. That should give us pause on how we feel justified in treating each other. In this society we live in it is okay to think of yourself first---as a matter of fact, it has become the new mantra of the day. To thine own self be true…..the problem with that is real love is not selfish. That does not mean you let people abuse you and walk all over you. It doesn't mean we don't set boundaries and decide who we give our hearts to with great care. It means that those people God has put in our lives need to have us demonstrate our love to them by putting their needs above our own. That sounds imbalanced and a little scary, but the scripture is very clear. This is what God does for us every moment of every day. We may not think that is the case when we lose a job for the 3rd time in a row, or when people let us down or don't keep their word, but in all the difficulties God is looking way ahead towards our future happiness. He is doing what is best for us and putting His need to be appreciated aside as we rail against Him for taking this or that away from us. While God is setting the stage for the very best to happen to us He willingly takes tons of abuse from His own kids! He puts our needs above His need to be loved by us just to make sure that our lives actually turn out the best they can be. God puts up with a lot from us, and He wants us to do the same with each other. He models patience and kindness on a daily basis. Losing a job may not feel much like kindness but believe me, it can be! God knows what our true hearts desires are. We may think we know, but I have been very thankful numerous times for prayers that went unanswered about things I was sure was the fulfillment of my hearts desire. I look back now, and see the wisdom of God in removing that thing from my life, or putting me in a position that I felt nearly destroyed me. What it really did was set the stage for what my heart was truly crying out for, and God knew the deepest cry of my heart and was answering that sound, not the surface stuff I thought I needed. Putting someone's needs first doesn't mean you give them what they think they need. It means you give them what they actually need, and that could mean taking stuff away instead of handing them things. Relationships make up the fabric of our lives---God Himself said it was not good for man to be alone. He created Eve so an entire human race could be born so we wouldn't be alone! God knew what loneliness was and didn't want that for us. Let's take care and guard the relationships God has allowed in our lives with love, honor, and appreciation, and in so doing we will actually be doing this to Him, b/c Jesus said:
"whatever you do to the least of your brothers you do it to Me" --v