A Great Lesson about Love and Relationships

Why waste your life trying to get the attention or win the affection of people who don't care about you?
Why make the effort to go where people merely tolerate you but don't celebrate you?
Why spend your time, effort, and resources seeking acceptance from people who are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't accommodate anybody else in their lives?

 

“ The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, the wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests. Matthew 22:2-10 (King James Version (1769) “

This is a parable told by Jesus Christ. A very important lesson is drawn here. Being a social Pro as I am, I came across this status update from one of my friends on Facebook…

 

#RELATIONSHIPS

Why waste your life trying to get the attention or win the affection of people who don't care about you?

Why make the effort to go where people merely tolerate you but don't celebrate you?

Why spend your time, effort, and resources seeking acceptance from people who are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't accommodate anybody else in their lives?

Why spend your spiritual gifts on people who aren't at all capable of recognizing and appreciating the One who lives inside you?

Jesus told a parable in which a man gave a great feast and invited many people to come. He sent his servant at the appointed time to say to those who were invited, "Come, for all things are now ready." But one by one, those who were invited made excuses. One had bought some property, another a new yoke of oxen he needed to "test," and another had just married.

Aren't those the things that people tend to value more than you today? One person has a business that he values more than you, another new car or new boat or some other new "toy" of some value that the person needs to "test out." Another has a new relationship that is more important than the relationship with you.

Find the people who are starving for what you offer! Find people who want who you are, what you give, and what you celebrate.

 

The status update incited few responses but to me it demanded full attention. In life, we are the King of our own lives. We rule our lives, we command our lives and we own everything within our power. As we encounter people in our lives, we desire to share our “Kingdom” with them. We would like them to be the Queen of our lives, or the King for that matter. We would love to extend the goodies of our hearts to them in the name of establishing relationships with them. In the effort to extend our Kingdom to them, we invite them to our lives. We engage them in our private affairs that are equal to giving them the mandate to run our Kingdom alongside us or on our behalf in our absence.

We end up investing time, money, emotions, affection, love, and everything that is dear in our lives. Not because they are to be wasted but because we choose to invest them on the people that we choose. Unfortunately, many people take the investment for granted and go to an extent of repaying us with broken trust and crushed hearts. We fall in love, only to be disappointed by those who we thought are in love with us, while all along they have been playing with our feelings. As employers too, we employ someone, invest a lot training this person in order to make this person as productive as possible, only for them to betray the trust bestowed to them by the company in one way or another. Same case with friends, we at times invest a lot in friendship but the friend does not see all that we are doing for the sake of friendship that we share.

Thus the question arises:-

1. Why waste your life trying to get the attention or win the affection of people who don't care about you?
2. Why make the effort to go where people merely tolerate you but don't celebrate you?
3. Why spend your time, effort, and resources seeking acceptance from people who are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't accommodate anybody else in their lives?
4. Why spend your spiritual gifts on people who aren't at all capable of recognizing and appreciating the One who lives inside you?

As we ponder on the questions, let us remember that Jesus Christ, who is the author of our faith has a nice lesson for us in the parables concerning how we are to deal with such kind of situations. Jesus had prepared a feast and extended the invitation to the ones he thought fit for the feast. But the people only made a joke out of the invitation. Some gave excuses; some disdained the invitation while others even tried to cause physical harm to the ones taking the invitations. Since the feast was ready, the invitation was extended to anyone who is willing and able to honor the invitation. The truth is, many turned up, in even large numbers than the initial invitation and the feast went on well as if nothing wrong had happened earlier on. To those who refused the invitation, the opportunity was destroyed for them such that they were no longer in a position to even accept any other invitations in the future “Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests”.  Just find those people who will appreciate you as you are. Give your attention to those who deserve it and NOT those who take you for granted. Extend your love to those who appreciate what you have to offer, life is too short to be spent chasing after the wind. Do not waste your time and effort trying to please those who cannot be pleased by you: its an exercise of futility that will only cause you disappointments and that will drain you emotionally until no more love is left in you. Some people are so nice at breaking our self-esteem. They will make it appear like we are not capable of loving, caring, helping or doing any other kind act. They will come in our lives and completely destroy our tender tentacles of affection and leave us feeling so empty and hollow, we will even dread to fall in love again.

If you are in such kind of situation, please get out of it as soon as possible. Start a new life….here is another moral story that goes with it…..

Anthony was a young man who used to enjoy his life to the full. Among his dearest hobbies was mountain climbing. One day, he set on a journey to climb the highest mountain. And to climb he did. Among the mountaineering gear that he had was a waist rope that would be hooked on a rock so that incase of slipping and falling, the rope would hold him and help him from crashing to death. On his way down, he passed through a very rugged path with rocky cliffs hanging at an angle of 90 Degrees vertically. As he was moving down, he slipped and fell. He continued to free-fall downwards accelerated by the power of gravity. But he was confident that he will not hit the rocks below since his rope would hold him. The rope came to an end and he hung in the air, a distance from the vertical cliff. Since it was not possible to reach the cliff, he started to freeze. He knew if no other climbers saw him, he would freeze to death. And to his worst fears, darkness started and no climbers were coming. He remembered God and started praying for deliverance. The conversation went like this:

Anthony: God please save me from imminent death

God: If you believe I can save you, cut the rope and fall

Anthony: That is suicidal, am not going to cut the rope

God: That is the only way I can save you.

Anthony: God, please another way

God: If you are not going to cut that rope you are going to die

And God left

The following day, a group of climbers found Anthony frozen and dead, hanging only 2 Meters from the ground. The moral of this story is that whatever it is that you think is holding your dear life, lover, addiction, money, friendship etc, and it is only serving your life negatively, just pray to God and let go off it, and you will live even a more happier and fulfilled life. Giving up does not always mean you are weak but sometimes it means you are strong enough to let go. Just let go off those people who do not appreciate you, and you will be surprised to know that there are a lot more waiting to let you know how important you are in life.

There may be this person who you are really wooing to be your lover, you desire him/her for so long but the person is less concerned. There is this person who always seems to make light of your friendship, there is this employee who seems to make light of his work? Etc Trust me, Jesus wishes to have you extend the invitation and you will be surprised. You will find people who were dying to have such a privilege…..” Find the people who are starving for what you offer! Find people who want who you are, what you give, and what you celebrate.”…..and trust me, you will be even happier than before to realize that you were really missing out to love and to be loved by those who deserve.