"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."
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
I used to think the spiritual life was mostly a solo project. Just me and God, my quiet time, my prayers, my journal. And then I started noticing.
Some of the clearest things God has said to me over the years came through a person. A friend who said the thing I needed to hear. Someone who saw something in me that I could not see from the inside. A conversation that started as small talk and became, somehow, the thing I had been waiting to hear.
I do not think that is an accident. I think that is design.
Why community is hard.
I want to be honest here. Community is not always easy. People are complicated and sometimes hurtful and sometimes confusing. Church can be the place where you have experienced some of the most painful things in your life. If that is true for you, I am not going to brush past it.
But I have also found that the alternative, managing my spiritual life entirely alone, has its own dangers. Mainly this one: when I am the only one I listen to, my blind spots stay blind. I can circle the same thought for years and call it discernment when it is actually just habit. I can mistake my preferences for God's leading. I need other people to interrupt that loop.
God has always spoken through people.
This is one of those things that becomes obvious when you step back and look at Scripture. He spoke through prophets and priests, through letters written by humans to humans, through the community of believers that was the early church. He chose to work through people even when he could have bypassed them entirely.
I take that seriously. Not as an excuse to outsource my discernment to other people, but as a reminder that the spiritual life is not solo by design. We are meant to be in relationship. We are meant to know and be known. And sometimes the word we have been waiting to hear from God is sitting across from us at a table.
Showing up is the practice. Some days showing up is the entire spiritual discipline. You go, even when you are tired. You stay at the table. You keep being known. And over time, something is built that cannot be built alone.
Show Up Even When It Is Hard
Today, identify one area where you have been isolating yourself in your spiritual life. Maybe it is a small group you have stopped attending, a friend you have pulled away from, or a community you have been avoiding. Make one concrete step toward showing up this week. It does not have to be perfect. It just has to be present.
- What has kept me from community, and is that reason valid or is it fear?
- How has God spoken to me through another person in the past?
- What would it look like to let someone really know me?
- Who has been placed in my life that I need to encourage?
- How is my spiritual life different when I am in community versus when I am alone?
- What blind spots might I have that other people can see but I cannot?
- Am I showing up to be known, or just to show up?
Lord, thank you that you did not design us for isolation. Thank you for the people who have said the right thing at the right time without knowing they were doing it. Help me to show up. Help me to stay when it is easier to leave, to stay known when it is easier to manage my image. And help me to be that for someone else, the voice in the right moment, the presence that helps someone feel less alone. In Jesus Name, Amen.
You Were Made for This
Community is not a nice addition to the Christian life. It is not a supplement you add when you have everything else figured out. It is central to how God designed the spiritual life to work.
God speaks through people not because He cannot speak directly, but because He choosing to work through relationships is part of the design. The Body of Christ is not a metaphor. It is the means by which His presence is made visible in the world.
So show up. Even when it is inconvenient. Even when it is uncomfortable. Even when you would rather be alone. Something is built when we gather that cannot be built alone.