It wasn’t long ago, I found myself sitting along the beach having a conversation with a good friend. We were most likely analyzing over personality types until the conversation drifted over to love languages. She made the comment that “curiosity” was my love language, it just hadn’t made it on the list. I laughed and agreed knowing it probably wasn’t far from the truth. When I’m engaging with an individual, I want to know them and the intriguing person they are. When I am engaging with friends or family I absolutely thrive on making heart to heart connections. It’s when deep calls to deep and you can just feel confidence rising within as the hidden person of the heart is revealed. What I’d really like to be saying out of my own curiosity might sound like this, “Let me look into the eyes of your soul and search out every hidden treasure within you. Tell me how you feel and what you think about everything under the sun and the heavens above. I want to know your heart and what makes it beat faster. What do you care about? What’s important to you? I want to see the expression of your face when it lights up with excitement over the dreams you carry deep inside” Although that is a very dramatic way to phrase it and would probably sound extremely creepy, it does well to show just how curious I become of people. Not only that, but how much I desire to invest something in them. To invest in others is more than using all the right words, giving money or being an expressively open book. Those things are not bad and can be of great help but to invest is also to give your time away and to listen carefully with understanding and wisdom. I truly believe that investing in relationships is one of the most rewarding things we will ever do.
WE SHOULD NEVER LOSE CURIOSITY IN PEOPLE.
No one ever invests in something they don’t believe in. To invest in people, we have to believe in them. We must see their greatest potential even before they do and carve a path for them to walk in by speaking truth into their life. We are to call people up to a higher place and start declaring the truth about who they are, not just who they aren’t. If we can tell people who they are not but can’t tell them who they are, we do a half-done job and the investment is lost. Jesus called Simon, one of His twelve disciples, “Peter” which means “rock”. He knew that Simon should carry the name Peter for a very specific reason. It was who Simon truly was. He calls us by who we truly are too, and we get to do that for each other.
I find myself to be so incredibly fascinated by people. One of the most fascinating things about a person is the fact that there will never be a time when there’s not something new to learn about them. It is the same with our creator God. How unsearchable are His thoughts! We will never stop discovering new things that reveal who He is and His character. He is eternal and He made us eternal beings as well. We are indeed made in His very image, and I believe this is an example of what that looks like.
AS A CULTURE, WE HAVE BECOME VICTIMS OF LAZINESS WHEN IT COMES TO BEING GENUINELY INVESTED IN RELATIONSHIPS.
Technology being a huge culprit for that. Social media has (many times) become the base of our judgments about someone. We can find out where a person lived when they were twelve, what they had for dinner on Tuesday of 2007 and the middle name of their step mother. This is simply just and only an overload of (mostly unnecessary) information. A person can only portray to be who they want to be portrayed as when it comes to creating a Facebook page or any other social media site. A few minutes of stalking and we think we have the person figured out. We place people in boxes all of the time. I even do it to my own family. Once we’ve known them and observed their behavior and interests for a while we then feel as if there’s nothing more to learn about them. Therefore, we stop trying to discover that which is in their heart and thus, fail to hear it correctly.
PERHAPS IF WE BECAME MORE INQUISITIVE OF OTHERS, WE WOULD LEAD A MORE EXCITING LIFE WITH A DEEPER COMPASSION FOR WHAT TRULY MATTERS.
Life is about relationships. People, friendships, acquaintances, co-workers, bosses, employees, husbands, wives, children. We live in relation to one another. In our everyday interaction with people, how many times do we seek them to fulfill us according to our own needs? When have we cared enough to know what they care about? How often have we stopped to sit down and talk to someone and hear them out? We can only value people if we have value for ourselves. Otherwise it’s flimsy and cheap. Building relationships should be a top priority but it’s hard and nearly impossible to do when we are burdened by offenses. The offenses we carry drain the life out of those around us. They build walls that store destructive thoughts. Holding an offense breeds hate which is why we must know Him first to know who we are. This enables us to walk in freedom, placing truth above all reproach.
WE NEED TO BECOME IMMERSED IN THE REALITY OF FATHER GOD’S LOVE FOR US IN ORDER TO WALK IN THIS CONFIDENT, INCORRUPTIBLE LOVE FOR OURSELVES AND OTHERS.
Offenses, self-worth, how we view God, it all plays a part in how we treat our relationships and people. Rounding it back to curiosity, it is indeed the key to discovery. We should be excited to discover people in a new light. Being curious about people is more than analyzing from the outside and making poor assumptions, instead it should drive us to pursue and chase after others with the same love that is constantly in pursuit after us. Be curious. Make connections. Invest in relationships. Snatch people out of the fire and remind them who they were made to be. Let’s stop looking away and instead become curious investors who look intently not just to see but to find that which lies beneath the surface.
