We can spend years with people and still not know them. And I am not just talking about people who are living secret lives that their loved ones don’t know about. I’m talking about misreading motives, or misunderstandings that go deeper than they should. I’m talking about little disagreements that turn into World War III and you’re still trying to figure out who launched the first nuclear warhead. You’re trying to figure out how you went from a peace treaty to Defcon 1 or 2, where you are about to blow up the relationship.

And while God is not moody nor acts in predictable ways, even God gets to a point where He says that, “If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never know me.”

The song writer wrote these words, “If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never, never know me (ooh). Now all the things that we’ve been through, You should understand me like I understand you…”

Now somebody ought to shout amen that God didn’t write that song, because He sure could have. Read again Jesus’ words in John 14:9.

It is the night before the crucifixion. Jesus had called the 12 disciples three and a half years earlier. These are the twelve; the ones who were given authority over demons and diseases. These are the ones who have witnessed Jesus’ greatest miracles: the feeding of the 5,000; His walking on water; Him casting out demons from the Gerasene demoniac; Him raising Lazarus from the dead. And yet Jesus asks the question, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me?”

What if Jesus were to ask us that question? Is that question possible after God has paid our bills, kept us healthy, healed our bodies, healed our minds, delivered us from situations we never thought we would get out of, performed miracles both small and great?

While we praise God for all that He has done in our lives, the question that Jesus asked may still be relevant to us today; Have I been so long with you, so long healing you, so long delivering you, so long clothing you in your right mind and yet we do not know God?

Here is the reality that we must deal with; just spending time together does not insure that you are getting to know someone. Just going through stuff together does not ensure that you know each other better. It really does take effort and patience to know someone. You have to have some difficult conversations in order to know what’s really going on in their heads. And sometimes you have to have really difficult conversations so you can believe what someone is telling you. The same is true with God.

First, let’s understand why it is so hard to get to know others. We begin with the ideal relationship and how it got messed up.

One of the reasons that Samson kept getting burned in his romantic relationships with women is that he really did not know them. If he had really known his wife, if he had undressed her intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, he probably would never have married her. And at the least he would not have told her his riddle because he would have known that he could not trust her. But this is not just true romantically. In friendships, in business dealings, you are much better off if you know what drives a person. If Samson had known that Delilah was so driven by money, he would have never told her the secret of his strength.

Can I show you what God provided to protect the ideal relationship? Let’s go to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, starting with Genesis 2:16.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not the tree of good and evil. The evil is not in the tree or in its fruit. The evil is in the knowledge that is gained by disobeying God. The real damage of sin is what it does to our minds. The real damage of getting physical with every Tom, Dick and Harry or Mary, Jane and Sue are the memories and thoughts that cannot be erased, which start playing when you have finally found the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.

Look at verse 18. God commands Adam not to eat of the tree and then in the next verse says, I will provide a helper.

When you find Mr. or Miss Right, you will get more spiritual, not less. You will come to church more, not less. You will want to follow God’s laws more, and not less. I’m not suggesting you won’t make mistakes. But the general trend should be toward more spirituality, not less.

Now ladies before you get upset about being Adam’ assistant, this is not about being Adam’s maid. God says, Adam you can’t do this alone, let me give you some assistance. Let me give you some help. To really understand this assistance that is provided, go to the New Testament where we will see this same pattern, command given, assistance provided.

Don’t miss the parallels between Genesis 2:18 and John 14:15-16. As soon as obedience to a commandment is given as a directive, the next verse speaks of a Helper to help with keeping the commandment. So the role of women was to assist men in keeping the commandments of God. The role of wives is very similar to that of the Holy Spirit.

Consider the roles of the Holy Spirit, and you will see a parallel between the women in our lives and the Holy Spirit.

The first question we must ask of this passage is, where was Adam when Eve was being tempted by the snake? If she was supposed to help Adam in resisting sin, in resisting the tree, then why were they not together? When God made Eve, He made her suitable for Adam, meaning that she supplied what he lacked and vice versa. What was needed to resist the wiles of the devil was not in Adam alone nor in Eve alone. Now some have struggled with verse 6, where it says “she gave to her husband with her” and here is where we have to follow the tried and true biblical principal of here a little and there a little, line upon line and precept upon precept. God says in verse 17 that Adam listened to the voice of his wife, not the serpent, and 1 Timothy 2:14 says, “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” Had they been together, they could have potentially fought off the devil. United they could have stood but divided they fell.

This new knowledge of evil makes them view with suspicion that which was holy and righteous before. Part of what makes our relationships so difficult is that we all have knowledge we are not supposed to have, which makes that which is actually good and normal seem bad and abnormal.

I didn’t grow up in a touchy-feely family so I am uncomfortable with too much touching. I didn’t grow up in a two parent family so I don’t know how to negotiate with my partner to make decisions. I was inappropriately touched as a child so what seems normal to others doesn’t seem normal to me. I had a boyfriend or girlfriend who cheated on me so now I have trust issues in my marriage or I find it hard to be faithful.

Once you know the difference between good and evil, good is never good enough. We were only supposed to know good. We were never supposed to have anything to compare good with. The problem was not with the fruit that they ate but with the knowledge they received.

We can’t begin to repair our relationships until we acknowledge that what we think is normal, might not be actually normal. You can put on your new self which is created in Christ Jesus.

Before God comes with a solution for Adam’s and Eve’s nakedness, He asks two questions that each of us must answer if we are to better our relationships. The first is in verse 9: “Where are you?” We must take an honest evaluation of where we are in our relationships. An honest evaluation is not just about what you dislike about the other person or what you are angry about. An honest evaluation includes the fact that life may be going OK. The bills are paid, the kids are good kids, life could be a whole lot worse. Where are you?

The second question is, “Who told you?” Who told you that you were not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not funny enough? In other words, God is asking from where did you get that corrupt information? Who told you that good was not good enough? Have you eaten from the tree from which I told you not to eat? Our relationships will always have problems that are hard to resolve until we acknowledge that we have bad information that came from questionable sources.

Until we are fixed we must be clothed; until our spirits are repaired, our intellects restored, our CPU’s fixed, we must be covered.

You can’t just be yourself. You must be covered if you are going to make relationships work. Colossians 3:12–15 says, “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.”

When I put on Christ, I can be compassionate. When I put on Christ, I can be kind and humble, and gentle and patient.

Our last Scripture is where God comes to the conclusion that if you don’t know me by now, you will never, never know me.

You are in love with the thought of being in love with that person. But the actual person you are not in love with because you don’t know them. And there are people who need to commit to having more than puppy love with God and with the people around them.

We all need to acknowledge that sin is crazy. It is irrational. It doesn’t make sense. If it did, God could not hold us responsible for it. Let this mind be in you . . . Until your mind is restored, there are some issues that are going to pop up in your marriage which are not about your partner but they are about you. You need to understand that not every thought that passes through your mind is valid.

Your spirit, which is your intellectual framework, is greater than your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. When you have a crazy idea or thought, who is it that told you that the thought was crazy? It was your spirit. We need to stop believing the lies coming from the devil that we cannot control our thoughts or emotions. Many marriages would improve today, if we started believing that we were in control. Everything that comes to your mind does not have to come out of your mouth. Neither should you believe everything that comes to your mind.

PETE PALMER, a former teacher, school principal, is President of the Allegheny East Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.