IT Doesn’t Matter

The most exasperating statement that anyone can make is, “IT doesn’t matter,” after you have poured out your heart to them about whatever issue that presently confronts you. The truth is, IT really doesn’t matter simply because your issue is not matter – IT is a construct you’ve made. Before you go fuming off in a huff about this, give me an opportunity to enlighten you. I’m going to draw from the writings of Martin Buber in order to explain this.

All of us are in relationship to someone. By reading this, I am in relationship to you. This I-YOU relationship is what we are all striving to create and maintain. All of us know who “I” is in every relationship; we also know who is “YOU.” YOU is another “I.” However, there is another relationship which came prior to I-YOU, it is I-IT.

IT is something that “I” define or categorize at relevant to me and how “I” view myself. All “ITs” are dependent on my knowledge and are bound to a date of when “I” defined and created them. Every IT is designed to enhance who I am, to display my glory, my wisdom, my agenda. IT’s substance, girth and value is only what I declare IT to be. This is why IT doesn’t matter, only YOU is matter, because YOU is the only thing created by God.

How is you’re relationship with God? Many find difficulty in answering this question simply because they’ve made God into an IT. They’ve moved Him up there, out there based on some date of an event in their life. They’ve defined who God is, or isn’t, and feel better not interacting with him simply because the memories they’ve experienced, or have been told by other’s memories, don’t make for a very productive relationship.

We all know that God is eternal. Eternal beings don’t have memories. Memories are dates attached to time. If I ask you to remember your sixth birthday, you’ll get IT. God doesn’t recall IT, he only sees YOU, the eternal person who has always been in relationship with him.

There is an old saying which states that a child before they are born, knows the entire universe; which they lose in their first breath, and feebly attempt to recapture over a life that already is eternal.

Can you recall a moment with that someone special in your life when you lost all track of time? That is an eternal moment, the pinnacle of an I-YOU relationship. It is “I” looking into the face of “YOU,” attentive to YOU, responding to YOU, smelling YOU, feeling YOU, enjoying YOU not for what “I” get from an “IT” but for what “I” get to give to YOU.

Relationships with ITs are not reciprocal. This is why no one wants to be IT. We run away from being IT as fast as we can.

An “I,” however, wants YOU, needs YOU, desires YOU. YOU matter; YOU are the matter God made which an “I” longs for.

IT doesn’t matter to anyone. Just forget IT. YOU can, I know YOU can. How? I Am, YOU, eternal.