The Challenge of Relationships

I'm reading this fascinating book by a great thinker of this past century, Lesslie Newbigin. He spent many years in India having spiritual conversations on faith. He has written a number of influential books including the one I am currently reading called The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.

One significant point he makes is that one cannot come to know people through dispassionate analysis. You can learn much about our world through research, analyses, discovery including coming to the conclusion that God exists. You can learn a lot about people through the above process as well. He describes this as the I-it position in which the "I" is in control or is sovereign in relation to its world.

The surprise for me was that he agrees that one can come to believe that God is real and does some miraculous things but that heading in the I-it direction will actually lead one away from God and from meaningful relationship to people.

He offers the I-You approach which takes us out of the seat of control and now puts us in the position not of discovery but of revelation. This position means that there are things being done and shown to us that come as a surprise and are not within our control. We are willing to be questioned and challenged by the other. This is how we really come to know God and people.

How does this strike you? Do you find this to be true in your relationships with people, with God? How does this play out at work? What if we were to take this posture more with God and others? Would we fare better, worse?