The Eleventh Cup // Relationship Bugs

No doubt we are currently living in a digital era. Everything can be accessed easily through the tip of our finger. Scrolling through Instagram has become our daily habit. What we see on Instagram makes us comparing our life and wanting the same. One of the hype is #RelationshipGoals. Pictures with #RelationshipGoals has become our picture perfect real life fairy tale and we work so hard to achieve the same.

The #RelationshipGoals is now every couple's benchmark. Everyone thinks relationship should be all happy and easy, so when it gets a little messy we just give up because we think it shouldn't be that way. What happened to for better, for worse?

I've read many stories. Teens depressed due to lack of likes on Instagram. Girls took hundreds selfies only to upload the perfect one. Couples fought because one didn't post as many couple pictures as the other one. Happiness is currently measured by how many followers and likes we have on Instagram. Therefore, we now know a new term called "Social Media Detox".

Bear in mind, Instagram is an expectation platform while we live in a reality platform.

What we post online, perhaps it is only several percent of our life. We always put every happy, lovely, idealistic, and overjoyed moments. Even, every picture has been through so many levels of editing from exposure, contrast, saturation, etc. I'm not saying it's fake, it's just not 100% real.

There is no long lasting relationship without any work done, just like there is no shortcut to success. In every relationship, there will be misunderstanding but how we work it out together that matters. There will be time when we fight, but how we forgive each other and how he still hold your hands and wipe out your tears that matters.

Every relationship is unique and different but the strongest relationship always has the same foundation – the love of God and the Words of God.

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” – Matthew 7:24-27

Does our relationship build on the rock or on sand? When we've already built it on the rock, don't let the sand get in. Remember, those pictures on #RelationshipGoals isn't always pretty. One picture might be taken after an ugly fight or perhaps before a big fight.

Relationship is not a goal, it is a long journey. A journey where we won't know what will happen along the way but we put our trust in it and in the person whose hands we always hold. 

Don't let the #RelationshipGoals become your #RelationshipBugs because what we see might just bite the great relationship that we’ve already had.