Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Let's be honest, life can be very hard sometimes. It can just feel like the pressures of life are weighing down on us. The stress of responsibility seems like too much. Maybe we feel like we're just stuck in our sin, or there's hurdles we can't overcome. It's really easy, in those times, to isolate ourselves, to pull back from community and to remove ourselves from others.
Maybe it's out of a sense of guilt where we don't want to be a burden to others, or maybe it's shame that we don't want to share what's going on. Maybe it's just the natural response. We're not sure how to interact with others, so the easiest thing to do is to be alone, or at least that's what we tell ourselves.
Sometimes it's not even a physical isolation. Sometimes it's a mental and emotional one where we're surrounding ourselves with people still, when we put on the masks and the smiles and we have the conversations, but inside we're preventing ourselves from sharing openly and honestly with others, and we don't build this vulnerability.
Learning From Experience
As a youth pastor, unfortunately, I saw this a lot. You would have kids come into the youth group and they would have such a good time. They'd eat the pizzas, play the games, and jump into groups with others. Then you would hear from their parents or another leader that they were going through something incredibly difficult, and you'd go, oh my gosh, I couldn't even tell by the way that they were interacting with other people.
What helped them in those moments, though, wasn't having an all-in-one solution or a quick fix. What helped was sitting down with them and going, hey, you're not in this alone. I remember one student in particular whose parents were going through a divorce, and she didn't want to tell other people because she just wanted to enjoy life, and she didn't want to be a burden to others.
I remember my wife and I pulling her aside one youth group and just saying, hey, we know what's going on and you're going to be okay. God is still good in this. Her smile slowly faded and she just broke down into tears. To this day, she's still one of our closest friends. Not because we fixed all of her problems in that moment, but because there was a community there that supported and loved one another.
God's Design for Community
That's what we read about in our verse today from Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 12:
A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Our response in times of stress and weakness might be isolation, but the reality is that we are weaker in isolation. God has created us to be with other people. That's what He calls us into—a community of faith where we can help each other set our eyes back on Jesus in those difficult times.
We can seek to meet one another's needs. We can love each other and inspire one another to love others and go outside of the walls of a building or a church, and to show the world that God is on the move. When God is in the midst of that, it's not just two people connected, it's three. That three-stranded cord is not easily broken.
Wherever you're at in life, I want to encourage you to find a community that's going to support you, find community that's going to speak truth in your life, find community that is going to draw the best out in you because they're pushing you and encouraging you to draw near to God. Community is so powerful and we are stronger for it, and we are the strongest when God is at the center of that community.
