Eternal Souls Christian Blog and Commentary

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Community

Community

Community

Thought- We need each other more than ever.

Scripture- “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:24-25

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” – Romans 12:4-5

Insight: On a recent 15.5-hour flight from Los Angles to Melbourne, Australia God put a very specific thought in my mind. It was how much we all need each other in order to survive in this world. At that specific moment, I realized how much we as passengers all needed the Pilots to do their jobs or we would instantly be in grave danger. To a lesser extent we also needed the flight attendants to perform their tasks so we could be served with food and drink on the excruciatingly long flight. We as passengers also needed each other to behave and act in a civilized manner so all hell didn’t break lose on the plane. We live in an inner connected world, where we all need the community of humanity working together in order to thrive and survive. We depend on each other for everything, and if one person like the pilot on my airplane doesn’t do their job, we would all be in a very dangerous situation.

In the scriptures above we also see that God encourages our need for community in recognizing that each person has been giving unique gifts that in isolation would be not nearly as useful as in community. Even in our physical bodies, each body part works much more powerfully and effectively when in conjunction with the other body parts. That is why I see a very worrying trend as I move around the world. I see the use of technology making people more and more isolated, more and more angry, more and more impatient. Many people spend much more time on their connected device than they do in interactions with other humans on a daily basis. They view others in some cases as a hindrance and an annoyance, who may have differing views then themselves and therefore must be inconsequential to them. Lately, we see the news saturated with horrific tragedies when individuals decide to step out of the lane of civilized behavior in order to inflict as much carnage on their fellow human beings as possible. The pain and wreckage they selfishly leave behind is immeasurable. Why is this happening? I believe one of the biggest reasons is we have lost our sense of community. Technology is isolating us and making us agnostic to normal human feelings and emotions. The media portrays an us vs them mentality, driven by negativity and division mostly fueled by politics, that appears to make it easier for people to snap when things don’t go the way they want or expect in their life. The preciousness of human life and the need for community is increasingly becoming diminished by our overuse of emotionless technology. Only turning back to God and His recipe for loving, successful community living appears able to stop this downward spiral. What this world needs are more peacemakers, not more gadgets and apps. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Prayer: Father God, thank you for sharing in your word how much we need each other to survive and thrive in life. We need each other every day. May you help us turn back to community and away from isolation. I pray in Jesus powerful name. Amen!