In the last discussion we ended with the theme:

“Love, as something we are commanded to do, in light of a relationship is a tall order and not just something that is flighty or easily swayed. So where is affection in this? Affection has its place in our lives as we grow and develop our relationships into Eros fashion. Where is the source? It comes from God as not only as a feeling but a command as well.  Then why are relationships so awkward and we have the fear of rejection in our lives in regards to relationships and affection?? That my friends is a discussion for another day.”

Well Its another day and after spending some time meditating and praying alot lately, I think that rejection ultimately can be blamed upon the negative impacts and experiences that the conceptual choice known as “hope.” I truly believe that the Architect from the Matrix: Reloaded defined supremely when he stated, “Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.” Hope is a delusion in the way that our minds become convinced beyond reason sometimes. With no logical proof we believe, trust and hope in things. It is our greatest strength because when we “hope” in things beyond reason, expectancy has a knack for working things out. We place our hope in God for a life better spent with Him and our lifes can be expressed in great elements of joy. Consequently we can place our hope in cars, money, careers, people, and relationships and when they do not satisfy or come through for us, we get disappointed, rejected, discouraged, and dismayed by these events. Now can we hope for jobs that would be awesome careers for us and be happy with it? Of course! But you must remember happy-ness is a flighty thing and the next day after we get the job we can conceivably hate it beyond reason. I do not intend to get into the discussion of contentment and life events and how they affect us, however a great amount could be said about them in their separate regards, however our focus is elsewhere.

Rejection is defined by dictionary.com as :

Now the last couple definitions can be aligned with the idea of being repulsive. In the context of relationships, our carried theme, and the thought of rejection, we can hold affection for someone and never get to the Eros stage because we are afraid that we are repulsive in some regards. We feel we might be too repulsive and be rejected, “discard[ed] as useless or unsatisfactory”, and become disappointed. Hope plays the role in the middle stage between Affection and Eros, because hope will sway us either way, being “simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.” In some essences, we can allow for self-confidence to play a role in this but it truly comes down to how much we hope, believe and within the context of Christianity, how much our hope is affirmed.

Hope affirmed can greatly influence our ultimate decision to attempt a relationship and let Affection flow further. Whether it be a word from God, confirmed expressions of encouragement from humans (likely friends and family or the occasional stranger that tells you your about to miss the boat), or precedent in our lives leading up to the decision point. Essentially what I am trying to state here, is that Hope, although being our of our own decision making and willful expression thereof, can be greatly influenced by the people and actions around us, including God in the way that He is in control of all people and actions but also speaks to us in various ways.

Ultimately because of Gods love, we have free will and free choice. God loved us so much he gave us the decision to love him back and create a relationship, meaning he also gave us the decision to not follow after him. A relationship is a choice on both parts, God wanted it that way. Because of free will, no matter how much hope we have, the decision is ours to follow after God, or after a relationship – willingly expressing our affection, and our decision alone.

So we come to an interesting cycle of continues pinnacle moments where we could step out in hope, change our lives in some area for the good or lame (bad is an exaggeration), leave ourselves vulnerable, dismiss the self-inflicted ideas of repulsiveness, and hope beyond logic or reason that whoever we’re interested in will concurrently leave themselves vulnerable enough to say, “yes.” We get many of these opportunities, especially with technology. We could send an e-mail, a text, a phone call, a tweet, facebook message, or heck be old fashion and request a meeting to talk (which I personally would encourage), at any point of the 24 hour cycle we live in. Every moment we could be living life expressing and flowing with hope, expectancy and in cases love (whether for God or someone, the first being more important), and experiencing life in so many more faucets than we could imagine. But fear and rejection stop us from it all. We allow for pinnacle moments to pass us by every minute of the day we sit and wait and ponder without doing something constructive (either praying and meditating on the situation or acting and choosing in regards to it).

Even though there is alot, not only in this blog but other places as well, writen about this particular topic, it can all be summed into two decisions. the first one is are you going to go out and ask? The second one is, will the other person say, “yes” or “no” ? If its in the case of God, He will always say Yes and then some. If its a person of the opposite gender, then they may say something different, depending. My only advice in that regard is found in Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT, “5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”