Inner Court of Relationships

Don’t be deceived by the first two paragraphs, this is not a religious post. Just stay with me, I am going somewhere.

Remember in the Old Testament, the temple had the outer court, inner court and holy of holies. Your level with God basically determined the areas you had access to. Almost everyone was limited to the outer court, which is where people offered sacrifices, and most of the general activities happened.

Some of the people who served at the temple were in the inner court, and they were all Levites, the tribe God specifically chose to serve Him. Then only one person was allowed into the holy of holies, and that was the high priest. Before he can enter, he must be clean and have made some atonement. He must be deemed blameless and sinless in the sight of God. Anything short of this, and he will be struck dead if he enters the presence of God. That is why they always tie a rope to the leg of the high priest so that if he is struck down, the Levites in the outer court can pull him out since they cannot enter the holy of holies.

As human beings, we also have different levels of access in our lives. We have our outer court, inner court, and holy of holies. When we meet people, it is just natural that they be in our outer court for a while, and depending on the level of the friendship that evolves, they graduate to the inner court, and very few people get to the holy of holies. Some people will forever remain in the outer court, and some will graduate to the inner court faster than others.

Pains and betrayals that occur in our lives basically happen when people in our lives have access to courts they have no business having access to. Imagine someone who is supposed to be in our outer court being in our holy of holies. It is madness for someone to meet us yesterday and call him our best friend tomorrow.

We are most guilty of this in relationships. We meet a guy today, start tripping and even when the guy hasn't worked hard to gain our trust, we give our whole heart to the guy. When the guy walks out of our lives, or doesn't give us what we expect, and we become so heartbroken. This happened because we let people into spaces in our hearts they have no business being. And I am not even talking about sex here. I am talking about our vulnerabilities, our care, our passion, love, deep-seated feelings, etc. We need to reserve them for guys and ladies that have at least made it to the inner court. At least, we can hold them accountable in case of any mess ups.

We need to let people prove themselves. Failure to guard our hearts will lead to continual disappointment and eventually, bitterness.

Source

This does not give us the license to be cold to people. We need to be warm and friendly, but be wise to watch how we let people into intimate areas of our lives. Don't just hand the keys to every tom, dick and harry you see in the outer court.

I once heard of a woman who went to her fiance’s house, and got talking to his parents. She came from a very dysfunctional family. She started telling them negative realities about her family, parents, siblings, etc. Basically, she downloaded her family history for them. The intended in-laws were just looking and smiling. Immediately she left, they told their son “you cannot marry her!”

Did she lie? No! What did she do wrong? She gave information meant for people in the holy of holies to people in the outer court. And the in-laws, either out of disgust for the dysfunction or fear that she would be divulging their own family secrets to outer court people when she marries into their family, gave her the boot.

Let us assess our relationships today, and properly determine what court each of them belong to, and then give away information accordingly. Only by this would we be able to save ourselves from serious trouble in relationships.

So what do you guys think?