I And Thou Series

We all have restless hearts and we won’t find true rest and peace in our lives until we get that relationship right in our lives. And here’s the lagniappe, when you get your relationship right with God, it will transform all your other relationships in your life. Everything else changes when we have a relationship with God.

What might that relationship look like? In his book “I and Thou”, Martin Buber poses that all of us relate to everything in this world in one of two ways. First is the I-It relationship. Most of the time we relate on the I-It level which means to see someone else as an object, not consciously but more often subconsciously. I may not say it but we look at others as what they will do for us and how they will impact our life. Will you hurt me or help me? Will you help to me to achieve my goals in life and be happy or will you impede that? We also do that in our relationship with God. So we pray, “God help me!” What will God give me? In the I-It relationship we are the center of our lives. In the I-It relationship, we look or evaluate people in your life through a cost/benefit analysis. It is very transactional in nature. Is this person worth the time and energy and sometimes trouble? Do I get more than I give? We become the center of our universe and everything we do is for me.

The second way we can relate to others is through the I-Thou relationship which he says is the ideal type of relationship though we may never attain it. In this type of relationship, you have sacred value and worth. You don’t exist to be served but to serve others. The other people in your life are people you are meant to care for and serve. No longer do you look at them for what you will get from them but rather you begin to see how you can serve them, how you can meet their needs and what you might accomplish together. No longer do I look at you for what you might contribute to my life but rather I get to know you for you. The same is true in our relationship with God. No longer do we worship God because of what he promises or what he will do or what he will give to us, but rather we seek to know God as God and to do His will and seek His purpose in this world and for our lives. Buber says, when you have the I-Thou relationship with God in place, it affects all others. No longer do you see others as objects.

If we are honest, if I am honest, we spend most of our lives in relationships in the I-It realm, in superficial and even though I would not say it, a what’s in it for me perspective? I even apply that to my relationship with God. And yet that’s not what God has in mind for any of us.

What does a relationship with God looks like? Some of you grew up in a household of faith but never really knew or experienced a personal relationship with God. Some of the ways people talk about their relationship with God is totally foreign to us. It feels too vibrant or sappy. Or maybe we hear people talk about a personal relationship with God and then we see how they live their lives, and we think to ourselves, if that’s what a relationship to God is like and the impact it has on your life, then I don’t want anything to do with that.