Today’s post represents the first “check-in” post of the blog reboot, and I have been mindful of the way that we are all doing life together. Throughout my personal study this week, and many interactions I have been drawn back time and time again to the fact that we are all in the same boat and working toward very similar goals.
As we look at the way that the “fruit” (a church way of saying tangible proof) of our growth is ripening, we need to look no further than to the way that we treat one another. If we want to see the way way we love God, we have to look no further than the way that we treat one another.
Scholar William Barclay was reflecting on a passage of scripture from 1 Corinthians 3:4-9 where Paul is reminding others that we don’t follow other apostles, but God. We are all co-laborers in the work that has been set before us. So Barclay wrote of this passage:
[blockquote source=”William Barclay”]This is extremely significant because it means that you can tell what a man’s relations with God are by looking at his relations with his fellow men. If he is at variance with his fellow men, if he is a quarrelsome, argumentative, trouble-making creature, he may be a diligent church attender, he may even be a church office-bearer, but he is not a man of God.”[/blockquote]
The way that we are tending to others is a very good indicator of our heart for God and the two-fold love commandment. Through our loving God and one another we are more fully able to live out that call on our lives. The trouble is that when we are working hard at the path we have set before us, we forget that others are earnestly doing the same thing. When the two paths cross we are quick to forget that we are meant to do life together. This “amnesia of community” is especially strong in the western society where we jump ship when the next promotion comes, a higher level youth sports team opens a spot or it gets really hard walking the path you are currently on.
In doing life together we are better able to understand the struggles of others and gain a more clear understanding of what God has in store for the whole community.
When I forget we are called to do life together:
- I am easily exhausted when people don’t see things THE way I do
- I see others as a means to an end rather than someone who is of sacred worth just as I am.
- We are never going fast enough
- I don’t care about anything besides getting my part done
When a perspective of doing life together is forgotten I am also less creative and feel more like a cog in the “productivity machine.”
So, now time for the practical.
What can we do to keep proper perspective of doing life together?
- Read Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the disinherited (buy here on Amazon)
- Read Detrich Bonhoffer’s book Life Together (buy here on Amazon)
- Read through the Book of Acts
- Help someone out with a project of theirs that has nothing to do with yours
- Slow down and take a walk at the someone else’s pace.
- Take a life together lesson from the band The Alternate Routes–
