I have always told our groups that we are created for relationships. Well, I was challenged on that last night when one of our guys asked how I knew that and what that meant. What followed was a great discussion.

Starting with Genesis, we read about God saying it wasn’t good for a man to be alone. We quickly moved through the Bible from a relational perspective. All of this is probably old news to everyone, so I won’t go into detail. Something happened that was new though.

We talked about healthy and unhealthy relationships since we have some social drama going right now. I concluded from the discussion that we are not only created for relationships, but we are also created with the need to help others and be helped. These two are never in balance, but when one of them overwhelms the other it is disastrous in our relationships.

When someone is needy to the point of living as a victim, they become a victim vampire, sucking the life from everyone around them. I likened that to emotional diarrhea. This is the person who is always telling the people around them about their problems and needs without allowing room to care for them as well. They really don’t want to solve their problems, they just want everyone to commiserate with them.

When someone is helping without revealing any needs, they become shallow and one sided. I explained that as emotional constipation. This person needs to help others. Like the previous person, they don’t want to talk about their problems, because they don’t want to solve them.

Both of these people are trapped, usually by a previous hurt or hurts. Moving into the gospel, it does its work in revealing our hurts and pointing to how God redeems them. In this way, we share the gospel with believers continually.

What do you think? Do you see these people in your groups? Do you see the gospel changing their lives?