Perplexing People Problems by Bonnie Peacock

People!  We can not always get along with them, yet find ourselves unable to survive without them.  Yikes!  They are everywhere!  For some reason God has intricately interwoven us into one another’s lives, and it has been that way from the beginning of time.

When God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7), it was not long before God declared, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). 

Here was man, created in God’s image, placed in a perfect world, in need of nothing.  There was no pressure, stress, conflict, competition, irritations, annoyances, pollution, toil, or struggle.  He was the apple of God’s eye!  They enjoyed a relationship that was truly unique.  Everything was perfect, and yet God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that man needed another human to complete him.

We need each other.  We are not complete without the complex and diverse interactions between ourselves and those around us.  People supply us with an ingredient that is missing—that we can not provide ourselves.  They give us hope when ours is gone.  They affirm us when we are unsure of our own value and abilities.  They support us when we are weak.  They love us when we are unlovable and lonely.  They provide the sounding board for our ideas, goals, and dreams.  They are the sandpaper that we all desperately need to smooth and redefine our rough, jagged edges.  

Face it!  We can not survive without them.  The Bible is firm in its instruction of how we should walk together in unity and love.  One of the greatest achievements anyone can accomplish is to become a lover of humanity, study mankind, and see others as unique creations of God. 

If we can truly love each other, we have fulfilled the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18), and the culmination of 1 Corinthians, chapter thirteen, “And now abideth, faith, hope, charity (love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity (love)” (1 Corinthians 13:13).  

To be like Jesus—to replicate His values, concerns, heart of compassion—is to love and serve lost, lonely, struggling humanity.  Jesus is in the “people” business, if we are to do His will and be like Him, we have to be in the “people” business too!

I once heard a mother make the statement, “love me, love my kids!”   I think Jesus says the very same thing.  Our relationships with each another is very important to Him.  Our interaction with and dependency on others is inevitable, they are necessary—frustrating and valuable, loving and unlovable, affectionate and as prickly as a porcupine, but they’re why Christ came to earth—”to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

We are in this thing called life together; we need each other.  So until He comes, let us bear each other’s burdens and “so fulfill the law of Christ“ (Galatians  6:2). 

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