Tonight in our home group, we are finishing up our study of When People Are Big And God Is Small. Studying this book has been a great experience. I would highly recommend it for personal study or for groups. This is a book that will crawl up into your lap and force you to ask some hard questions, but questions that certainly need to be asked if we are going to grow in our Christ-likeness. I think the biggest thing I am taking away from our study is the phrase "We need to need people less and love people more". Too often we view people as a means of meeting our perceived needs (self-worth, etc), instead of viewing people as the recipients of the love that God calls us to pour out on others. When people are there to meet our needs they become idols and we are prone to serve them as slaves. But when we see people not through the lense of "how can this person meet my needs", but rather, "how can I love this person" we are freed from this idolatrous slavery and freed up to glorify God and truly satisfy our deepest needs.
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Being almost 36 years old, single, and longing to be married at some point (with no prospects in sight.. or at least in *my* sight, that is!), I continually must remind myself to "need people less, love people more."
This lesson is not an easy one for me to remember, as a Christian man, who longs to share his joys and struggles with a godly wife (and vice versa). It is even harder to remember, day after day, year after year, as that longing is not met (humanly)-- but in that light, I need to remember the lesson all the more. Need people less, love people more.
...I should add, *not* as an end in itself, but for the glory of God and the good of others.
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