Dear Family and Friends,

We went trick or treating with our two-year-old grandson this week. He was adorable. I’m not sure who received more treats – him or us.

Let me share two observations from our Ala Moana SC experience. 

Honolulu does NOT have a child birth problem as does Japan and Korea.

And although it was crowded, we had a lovely time. Everyone was so warm and courteous. One could see genuine happiness in everyone’s faces.

Don’t we all wish this was everywhere every day?

Do you know who else wishes that? Our Creator.

He made us to be in relationships. How do we know this?

In the creation story, we see God speaking everything into existence. And then He said this, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” Genesis 1:26 NIV

Wait, did He say Us? Our?

We were made in the image of a God who’s an us. He’s not just a me, God is a community.

“The whole dance or drama or pattern of this three-Personal life is being played out in each one of us: or putting it the other way round, each of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we are made.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Until we’re in community ourselves, we will never achieve the happiness for which we were made.

But the community we belong in is no ordinary one.

Recall how Jesus sat for the final time with His disciples, and prayed to His Father, “… protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”  John 17:11 NIV

We were created by an us whose relationship makes them one.

A relationship so founded on love for each other that John wrote, “God is love.”  1 John 4:8 NIV

God could only be love if there is someone else to love. The same holds true for us.

So, as God breathed the breath of life into His creation’s nostrils, imagine with me what they were thinking – Let them relate as we relate and give as we give. May they see and be seen. Know and be known. Praise and be praised. Love and be loved.

Let’s look at further evidence that we were made for relationship.

Have you ever dreamed of living the perfect life? One with no cares nor worries. With unrestricted authority over unlimited resources.

Anything and everything you wish for – including the latest iPhone and Bose earbuds – at your fingertips.

Now imagine that you can have all of this. But on one condition – you would be alone.

This was Adam.

And of him God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  Genesis 2:18 NIV

We were created with a need for loving human relationships that neither paradise nor even God alone could satisfy.

For Adam, paradise without a relationship and love was not paradise.

So, after no suitable helper was found, God made woman.

Now a few of you are probably thinking that God made woman so mankind would procreate. While true, was this the primary reason for woman?

Remember, it’s not beyond God’s ability to just create more beings.

There was more to why God chose to create woman.

Someone who’s so unlike man. Who’s mysterious. Who sees things from a very different perspective. Who speaks the same language, but not always the same way. Who stretches man – even in places they don’t want stretched.

Now before all the ladies get upset, let me get to my point. The word helper does not mean the woman is the underling to man.

Woman was created to complement man. She knows, understands, sees and does things that only she can. Without Eve, Adam was not complete. 

And this is why when man is united to his wife, they become one flesh.

As Tom Cruise famously said to Renee Zellweger in the movie Jerry Maguire, “You complete me.”

Jesus gave us no exceptions to the second commandment. We are to love all, including people of other races and religious beliefs; those with different economic, cultural and political backgrounds; and our enemies. 

Jesus commands this for our good. He is saying that our deep relational needs are not met by only relating with people just like us. We also need to relate to those who are unlike us.

Which brings me to the reason why we are talking about creation, a subject most of us are very familiar with.

It’s to remind us that personal relationships are the meaning of life. It’s the why we were created. It’s the how we are designed. 

So, after this Tuesday there will be a Wednesday. A day God made for us to enjoy with old friends and new ones too.

This, my friends, is what life is all about. 

In love always,