Known By Dick And Ruth FothSample

The Relationship Instinct

You have probably heard what Jesus said is the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He said the second greatest commandment was like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

I came to understand those words in a new way on September 11, 2001. On 9/11, as time was running out, pressure mixed with compassion and courage created a Twin Towers family: “Come over here! Take my hand! I’ve got you! Let’s go this way! God help us.”

On that day it came crystal clear: We are designed to call on God and call on each other. From Cape Town to Calcutta, from Barrow to Beijing, you and I are built to reach out to God and to others. It is our deepest reflex.

Sometimes the cries to God and the cries to another person as we heard on 9/11 are so close they can almost be one and the same. They come from the neurotransmitters in the brain that fire in nanoseconds, receptors that link us to God and the humans we love. Even if you are not convinced of a God, in your peril you call on Him. In the next instant, you speed-dial family and friends. And in times of great danger, you realize that the stranger next to you is your neighbor.

Neighbor, in practical terms, starts with the one closest to me and works its way outward—family, friends, colleagues, and so on. But, Jesus pushed the boundaries. He said, “Your neighbor is the one right there.” The one you can call. Or see. Or touch. Or the ones you meet on a jammed stairwell saturated with the smell of burning jet fuel. On 9/11, people who had never met before were welded together for the rest of their lives. No one was debating ethics or religion. No one was questioning motive or family tree.

Most of our lives aren’t lived under threat of imminent death. But we still reach out in many different ways and under many different circumstances. The reflex is visceral. And reaching for others is often the way we find new life.

Think of a time when your immediate response to a crisis was to pray and to call someone you loved. What does this say about how God created you?