The road of life is littered with people who either did not have strong, safe, secure relationships, or failed to trust, call on, or lean on them in their darkest hour.

When we go through difficult times or situations in our lives there is often a strong temptation to withdraw into ourselves and detach from relationships, perhaps even our relationship with God.  This misguided defense mechanism kicks in at the most inopportune time, a time when what we need most of all is the supportive relationships of friends and family, and of course our most important relationship, the one with the God capable of making all things work out to our good.

It can be frustrating to see someone whom you know has all the potential in the world yet falls short of all that potential because they lack the ability to be a friend or befriended.  We see it a lot in ministry; pastors, evangelist, or church leaders with a plethora of shallow relationships but none deep enough to float them through difficult waters.

One of the primary causes for this withdrawal is insecurity.  When we fail to take the time or effort to develop deep lasting relationships, we wind up with shallow relationships that leave us feeling vulnerable in desperate situations.  It’s the advance work that we put into relationships during good times that make them safe and reliable in bad times.  Some people are insecure because they spend all their time in one relationship basket, focusing on growing one type of relationship over all others.  Invariably something comes up that requires a different kind of friend, and they have no one they feel close enough to call on.

Another reason people retreat from relationships in times of crisis is guilt.  People often feel guilty for not being the kind of friend others can rely on.  Sin also leads to guilt that prohibits people from embracing relationships in dark times.  Often we get ourselves in difficult situations because of spiritual weakness or maybe even sin, and we expect others to judge and condemn us.  When coming clean with people who love and support us is the best course of action, we block out relationships to try and protect ourselves from criticism and withdraw to protect ourselves from the shame of sin or failure in any form.

Finally, pride can often lead people to back away from relationships in times of calamity.  There are some people who just seem to think they know more than everyone else in their lives.  They find it difficult to submit “one to another” in relationship, like to be in the driver’s seat and always be in control of the relationship.  To ask for help would require giving up control.  These people want to be their own savior, their own hero, and can’t stand the thought of someone else being able to say, “I helped that person.”

It is sad enough when these things cause us to refuse to seek help from our personal relationships with friends and family, but when they cause us to stop turning to God, then the situation moves from sad to tragic. He is the one relationship that has the most potential to benefit us when we are struggling, the one we can least afford to pull away from. When we feel insecure in our relationship with God because we have not spent the advance time building a strong deep relationship, when we feel guilt because we know in our hearts that we are not the kind of friend to Him that he is to us, when we let shame cause us to withdraw, when pride gets in our hearts and minds and causes us to try and save ourselves, we set ourselves up for the crisis of a lifetime.

As I stated before, the road of life is littered with people who either did not have strong, safe, secure relationships, or failed to trust, call on, or lean on them in their darkest hour.  Don’t be that kind of person!