As a result of the Fall, not only was our relationship with God broken, but all of our relationships were broken as a result of this one relationship being displaced.
When I was a child, I loved playing with those slide puzzle games. They had the individual square puzzle pieces with one square missing. You had to put the alphabet, numbers or a picture back in their proper place by shifting the squares one at a time. It was often grueling and frustrating trying to get everything to line up and in their proper order. If one square was out of place, they were all out of place.
In a similar way, until we relate to God in the right way and allow him to possess that top first position in our lives, all our other relationships will be shifted out of place. Someone or something else will be in the top number one position that was never designed to be there. This one seemingly insignificant displacement, effects all our other relationships beneath by distorting their roles and priorities in our life. It causes whatever is in that number one place, to become an idol to us. An idol that we sacrifice our time, attention, energy, resources and affections to. It drains our investments from every other relationship in our lives and gives little to no return.
However, when we lay down our lives and invest them in God first, when we allow him to prioritize and re-order our relationships and redistribute our time, resources, energy and affections between him, our spouse, our children, our loved ones, our hobbies, our careers we find these small seeds of energy,time, resources, affections properly planted and invested produce a harvest of joy and fulfillment in our lives. It leaves us full and fulfilled with deep, meaningful, life-giving relationships. God can hold no other place or position in our lives and remain God, except the one position he created to fill with himself.
