Enjoy and Bless

I wanted to spend some more time considering this idea that humans are designed for connection and interdependence rather than independent living. Parents are often encouraged to raise their children to be independent, but if we aren’t designed to live this way, there must be a better goal to aim for in educating our children. And I think it’s tied to the very purpose for our existence. 

My senior year of high school I read an article in a Christian counseling periodical that proposed that relationships are reality. Everything else will eventually fade – grades, achievements, possessions. But relationships – they are eternal. At the age of 18, after spending the previous 8 years focused on maintaining a 4.0, this idea reshaped my perspective on life. I entered college determined to prioritize people over academics. 

The main problem with this for me was that my education had done very little in the way of helping me figure out how I uniquely relate to people. I often felt awkward around others and like something in me was defective because I wasn’t able to connect with others the way it seemed everyone else did. 

Most of all, I wanted to love other people well. Looking back now, 25 years later, I can see that my ability to love others freely was hindered by the fact that I had not learned how to freely love and value myself – me exactly the way God made me. I felt celebrated and valued because I was able to succeed academically, which felt good on the surface, but left a deep rooted insecurity. It’s no wonder I didn’t feel free to generously share love when I felt so uncertain about myself and what I had to offer relationships. My academic strengths didn’t really match my personal passion and joy and academic success did little to educate me in connecting well with others. 

Regardless of all this, I had stumbled upon a worthy pursuit: prioritizing loving people over all other goals. Twenty-five years later this idea still resonates with me. At our core, human beings are created to connect. We are created for relationships – relationships with God and with other people. 

I’ve been reading a book called Surrender to Love by David Benner, and his reflections provide language to a theological truth I’ve been sensing for years. Benner asserts that the Christian God created humanity not to merely have servants, subjects, or worshippers. He created us to be His friends. Not because He needed our friendship. But as a natural expression of who He is – love. Benner says, “… love, by its very nature always reaches out. Rather than be content with the circle of love within the Godhead, God reached out to create so that others could enter this sphere of intimacy and be warmed by divine love.”

From this perspective, we weren’t created to be independent. We were made for connection, for friendship, for interdependence – and ultimately for dependence on and intimacy with our Creator, the very source and sustainer of our being. 

We see this throughout scripture. From beginning to end, humanity’s flourishing is found not in autonomy but in communion. The first temptation in the garden of Eden can be seen as an invitation to independence and pursuing autonomy. Things went wrong when people decided to declare independence from their Creator. That’s not the life we were designed for and we’ve been suffering the consequences ever since. Jesus came to earth to invite us back to the original plan – a life of trust, abiding, mutual love, and dependence on God, as well as the brothers and sisters He has placed around us. 

One of the benefits of home education that I’ve appreciated the most is being able to value and prioritize relational and emotional education just as highly – if not more highly – than academic education. Coaching my kids through their conflicts, co-regulating with them through big emotions, noticing and celebrating how their individual strengths come together to solve problems or create fun and beauty – these are all essential pieces of raising my children in their full humanity. 

So here’s the question I’m wrestling with: 

How might our approach to education change if we believe that relationships are the most real and lasting part of human life? 

What might a school look like that has the goal of connecting people rather than simply transmitting knowledge?

What are the essential ingredients that allow a person to connect well with others?

How would our society change if school focused more on nurturing these ingredients in our children – connecting ingredients- more than simply filling their minds with information?

It’s a lot to think about! Thanks for listening and thinking alongside me. Would love to hear your thoughts!