We live in a world that is increasingly drawn to easy relationships. No conflict, no expectations, no humbling moments where we have to apologize or change. Just smooth, frictionless connection. I mean, if you could design the perfect relationship, you might be tempted to remove all the hard parts, am I right? But I’ve been thinking lately about how much we lose when we remove the discomfort. I’ve been thinking about this specifically because of what a TED Talk about AI relationships and a verse from Exodus have taught me about why expectations and even friction in relationships are a gift.
Today I am the one sharing the two-minute devotional on the WeBelieve app talking about this. I’m relating how those those tough times, when we are held to higher standards and are sometimes compelled to be humble, give incredible growth.
In the messiness we are so much more likely to seek how we can change and become better. This gives us transformative experiences.
What AI Relationships Are Teaching Us About the Real Thing
So the concept behind this snippet of a Ted Talk I’m referring to applies far beyond its original context. I later learned the full talk goes in a different direction than I anticipated, but this particular insight stopped me in my tracks.
In the Ted Talk, Bryony Cole talks about how 72% of teenagers today have formed relationships with Artificial Intelligence (AI). It makes sense that teenagers are drawn to this. An AI relationship is endlessly patient. It never has a bad day that bleeds into how it treats you. It never needs you to show up for it, and never calls at an inconvenient time. AI never asks you to apologize, causes you to be humbled, never sits across from you in uncomfortable silence waiting for you to be brave enough to say the hard thing.
For a generation that has grown up with instant everything, a relationship that removes all the waiting and all the friction feels like an upgrade so I get it. We all have moments where we wish the people we love would come with fewer sharp edges, right?
But here’s what worries me as a mother. When teenagers practice relationships only with something that never pushes back, they are losing the very skills that make real relationships work. Conflict resolution. Humility. The ability to sit with someone else’s disappointment in you and not fall apart. The courage to say “I was wrong” and mean it.
These are not skills you can develop in a frictionless environment any more than you can build muscle without resistance. And if an entire generation grows up relating primarily to something that asks nothing of them, what happens when they come face to face with a real human being who inevitably will?
Why Friction in Relationships Is Actually the Point
In all actuality, friction and messiness is where we build the muscles of strong relationships. It gives those relationships depth and power.
In the Ted Talk, Cole goes on to say that when relationships are easy, we lose something vital: we lose our drive for growth.
This is what keeps bringing me back to the idea of a God who expects things from us. In a world that increasingly offers us the option to opt out of hard relationships, there is something quietly radical about a God who loves us enough not to just tell us what we want to hear. Who holds a standard not to shame us but because He sees exactly what we’re capable of becoming. The friction in our relationship with God, including the moments of wrestling, of humbling, of showing up even when it’s inconvenient, is what relationships are really about. It is where we are changed.
What Moses and a Shining Face Have to Do With All of This
What does this have to do with the Old Testament, you may ask?
Well, the verse I get to talk about is from Exodus 34:30 where Moses himself has a transformative experience. He has brought the Israelites out of bondage and has led them on dry ground through the Red Sea. And in this chapter he has spent 40 days and 40 nights on the top of Mount Sinai speaking face to face with God.
A God who has expectations of him. As God does with all of us. This is what the verse says:
“And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.”
Exodus 34:30
I believe that because Moses had humbled himself and had leaned into the depth of his relationship with God, “the skin of his face shone.” I love that slightly before that, in verse 8 it says “And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.”
Moses had made time for God. He wasn’t perfect, but he was willing to work with God to become the leader he was. That prophet had humbled himself enough to get direction from God. He gave himself freely to be transformed.
I explain all this in my little two-minute message today if you want to take a listen.
When God’s Expectations Are the Most Loving Thing He Can Give
And do you know what? I LOVE that just like God did for Moses, He has expectations from us. He sees what we can be and wants us to grow to get there. He doesn’t just praise and give us kudos for everything we do. Because He knows our worth. And sets expectations so we can know it too.
How often do we have transformative experiences that change our hearts? And how can we hold onto them?
Showing up as the people we want to be in relationships and sitting in the hard with incomprehensible differences until we humble our hearts enough to grow and learn and connect is what it’s all about.
This is what creates depth and also what helps us grow.
A loving God shows true love when creating boundaries and expects a lot from us. He calls us to live more holy lives, to humble our hearts, and to give Him part of our heart. Those bounds help shape us.
How to Hold Onto Transformative Moments
Of course, we are still loved even when we don’t keep the “conditions” He gives us. That’s what grace is all about. But those boundaries help us become the kind of people who are humble enough to let God lead and guide us. And bring us joy, and yes, perhaps a “shining” face like Moses’s face when he came down from that mountain.
He gave his heart enough to be transformed by God. Moses didn’t come down from that mountain unchanged. He came down shining. Because he had given himself fully to a relationship that expected something of him.
I think that’s what God offers each of us. Not easy, frictionless approval, but the kind of love that sees what we’re capable of and holds us to it. That’s what transforms us. And that’s what I want to lean into. In my relationship with God as well as in every relationship that matters to me.
I have so enjoyed reading this blog. It’s a beautiful thing to watch a family grow and change over the years and so poignant to see the children become adults and the adults move into their later years.
The beauty of life abounds even in it’s swift passing.
I still remember, crisp and clear, the tone of my grandfather saying grace as we ate dinner in their kitchen in a house that housed 6 children who all returned with their own. He himself is now gone much longer than I care to remember, as he feels like an anchor in my life, in part surely due to the moral force of his faith. I know that the Heavenly Father that he addressed was as good and as real as anything could be because he addressed him so earnestly, taking care to remember all of those close to us and those in need in our circle and always, but always, thanking him for the bounty.
And that’s what we can share, the bounty and goodness of family life. Thank you.