Real community

We like to blame Covid for a lot of things. One of those things we use it for is an excuse as to why we don’t get together with other people. We have become prisoners of our own homes! Personally, I think it started long before Covid, it was just magnified after. I think the electronic era has more to do with it. I grew up without all that. Our phone had a six foot cord. If you really wanted to talk, you went to see folks. We had real conversations. Hard ones at times. We didn’t have the option of just not responding like we can with texts or emails. We couldn’t mask our emotions because we were face to face. It was good! It was freeing and healing. Yes it was risky at times. People do hurt each other but they also love each other better when they are together, and I mean in person, rather than the new online relationships we try to have today. We need community! It’s how we were created. Listen to the words that John wrote to his friends in 2 John : I have much to write to you but I do not want to use paper and ink. This could be said today as: I don’t want to type it up. He went on: Instead, I hope to visit you face to face so that our joy may be complete!
Even way back then when text was done with paper and ink, they longed for face to face. There are things in our nonverbal communications that cannot be conveyed in a text of any kind. Did you know that hugs are actually healing? It’s true! A real hug does something that a heart emoji cannot. A real smile, or a real tear, is of far greater worth when done in person. It’s easy to distance ourselves from other people’s pain when all we have to do is find a little character and click on it instead of going to their house and praying with them or just be with them. What about our own pain? It’s easier to take when people come alongside you and love you! Jesus, expressed his love by being among the people. He made friends, and if he were here today, he wouldn’t be holed up in his house doing the online thing! He would be with you and with me! He wants us to do the same! Let’s start getting together and quit hiding in our screens. Let’s have real relationships with real hugs and no more emojis!! Let’s start an open door style of life and make our houses a home where friends are welcome instead of prisons to hide in!! Thank you Lord for people you have gifted me with! Help me to be a real friend to those I meet and love them like you’ve lived me!!

I love you! For real!!