BAE

We all have those people in our lives. Our significant others, our best friends, our family, those who fill us up and make us smile. Ideally, they make us feel accepted and loved and capable. The people who are closest to us are gifts. They are a vital part of the community that God surrounds us with, and designs us to live in. I have found that it is so easy, however, to raise up those people who we love so dearly to a place that is detrimental to our relationship with them, but more importantly, to our relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

God does not call any person He places in our lives to be our "Before-Anyone-Else." That is a title that should be reserved for Him alone! I'm an idealist as a person. I see the good in people almost too easily. I am constantly battling in my head against my own imagination of what I would say is an perfect scenario, and accepting the actual perfection of what God has planned. This character trait is something that God has woven into me, and He is definitely able to use it for His glory, just like any and every character trait He designs into different people. He longs to use every "quirk" and they aren't quirks to him. How beautiful! He created every person uniquely, with a specific way for them to bring glory to Him that is unlike anything the world has seen! 

I believe one of my ways God has created me to glorify Him is to see the beauty in every person. However, if my idealistic self gets more focused on the people God has blessed me with, if they become my bae, I am automatically lost. I can't allow my security to rest on God when I am forcing it on another person, and I can't find the unconditional love and acceptance from friends. That's simply impossible. Not because the people who are in that role in my life are unloving or unaccepting. But they are human, and so am I. When I make mistakes, I think they will most likely still love me. When I make mistakes, God will ALWAYS still love me, regardless of what I think or feel. The reason why we can never find fulfillment in the people we seek to fill us up is simple: they are not God. There is a hole in our heart that is the exact shape of Christ. Only He can fill it. No one else can even come close. 

Something happens when try to fill people into that hole. Our relationships with those people are worn down and damaged. We are trying to squash them into a place they don't belong, and it wears both of us out. It might seem like an honoring thing for the person you are trying to get to fulfill you. After all, it's what happens in all the romantic movies and books. But finding fulfillment in another person just doesn't work. And seeking after them to fill something they can't fill will ultimately make them feel incapable, like they should be able to do more. But you are placing them in a role that is entirely too huge for them! It's not an assessment of how less-than they are. It's a wonderful realization of how capable God is at fulfilling us! No one can achieve it like He does, in a way that is above and beyond any fulfillment that our human minds can explain or comprehend. In a way that compels us to act and love and be transformed. Our priorities go through a drastic shift. Our souls shine through so brightly that it's noticeable and contagious. Our contentment is unshakable, because it is rooted in the One who is unchangingly good. 

These are the transformations that overwhelm our hearts when God becomes our bae.