Why Fast Food Relationships Don’t Work

Sometimes we don’t feel like spending the time or energy required to cook a healthy homemade meal, so we opt for a quick fix: fast food. It might not be healthy in the long run, but in the moment it can feel like a great shortcut.

We often try to do the same thing with relationships.

Fast Food in Relationships

Rather than put in the effort of actually knowing a person for ourselves, nowadays it’s easier than ever to find out information about them using social media like Facebook or other “networking” platforms.

Before social media, you had to actively engage in a relationship with someone to know when their birthday was and what they would like doing or getting to celebrate that day. Now, you can have this information readily sent to you by a social media platform, complete with reminders of their “special day,” so that you don’t have to put an ounce of effort into knowing them to know about them.

If you connect with someone on social media, it’s entirely possible to know all the dirt and drama in their life just by being on-line, since it’s delivered to your doorstep in a constant feed. You can learn about their messy divorce, their failed family vacation, their kids’ underperformance in school, and their falling out with their best friend all without ever picking up the phone to call them, sending them a note or e-mail, or meeting them in person. You can think you know them intimately because you know all their dirty details, but in another era you would only be colleagues or distant acquaintances.

Because it’s more convenient to “know” someone through social media than to invest real time and energy into a having an actual relationship with them, it’s easy to think that things are fine and social media is just the way that we do friendship now. But that’s giving us a false sense of confidence, because knowing about someone is no substitute for knowing them ourselves.

Fast Food with God

We often do the same thing with God.

We go to church and listen to sermons about God. We talk with people who know Him so we think we understand the way He works. We might even read the Bible and collect trivia about Him so we can win theological debates at church or weaponize our knowledge of the Bible to mistreat people at the store or on the Internet.

But if we really knew God and knew His heart and character, we would know that He doesn’t want us to win debates and “be right” at the expense of loving others. God is love and love is the foundation and the focus of everything He does. We are called to imitate God, and He is humble and values serving others over lording it over them.

There are some things you can only really know about a person when you really know that person.

Knowing about God can never be a substitute for knowing God ourselves.

In Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus tells a parable about ten bridesmaids:

“Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’

“All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’

“But the others replied, ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’

“But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’

“So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.

It might seem like the five wise bridesmaids were being rude or inconsiderate not to share their oil with the ones who weren’t prepared, but the oil represents intimacy with Jesus, and it’s non-transferable.

If I am intimate with someone and you want to know them just as well as I do, I can’t just snap my fingers and pass on that intimacy to you. You have to invest time in getting to know them for yourself. The five wise bridesmaids had invested time into having a relationship with the bridegroom (Jesus), and that can’t be transferred or made up at the last minute when you see Him coming.

Notice what the wise bridesmaids say to the foolish ones in verse 9:

“Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.”

Salvation is a free gift to us and Jesus paid the cost. But intimacy with Him isn’t free, and we must pay the cost.

Intimacy costs time, attention, and effort.

Intimacy is not a sudden, last-minute sprint, but a lifelong marathon where you invest your time, attention, and effort little by little, day by day, and gradually build up a reserve of oil that keeps your lamps lit even when you fall asleep.

Notice what Jesus says to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-19:

“I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see. I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference.

He rebukes them for their indifference to Him. He warns them that their true state is very different from what they think it is. They think they have already achieved everything they need. They think they don’t need anything from Him. But He calls them out and offers them solutions:

Notice that everything He says to do involves a cost. He doesn’t say to go and “find” these things. He specifically says to buy them. In other words, if you’re not willing to put in any effort, you will remain “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”

I think it’s worth noting, too, that the gold He advises them to buy is “purified by fire,” suggesting that it has reached a state of purity by withstanding trials (see Job 23:10), and that in Revelation 19:8 the garments worn by Jesus’ bride, the Church, are said to represent “the good deeds of God’s holy people”—their deeds, not their knowledge or intentions (or how many arguments they won).

Why Fast Food Relationships Don’t Work

Fast food relationships are counterfeits and shortcuts that give us a false sense of security. We think we know a person when we don’t. We think we have a relationship with them when actually we don’t.

When we try to have a fast food relationship with God, we end up like the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3 or the foolish bridesmaids in Matthew 25. Those bridesmaids hurried to make up for their lack of intimacy at the last minute but they couldn’t, and when they tried to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with the bridegroom, it was too late, because “the door was locked” (verse 10).

Just like stalking someone on social media can lead to you thinking you “know” a person when really they don’t think they have any kind of relationship with you, learning about God from other people without ever spending time with Him yourself can make you think you have a relationship with Him that you don’t have.

As the foolish bridesmaids found out in the parable, other people’s intimacy can’t be transferred to your relationship with Jesus at the last minute. They banged on the door and cried for Him to open it, but His response to them was only this:

“Believe me, I don’t know you!”