Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers. ~ 2 Timothy 4:19-21 (NIV)
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Friends....
Take a minute and scroll through the photo album of your mind, and look at the faces of your friends...
We all need friends, and God is so gracious to give them to us! They come along side of us, giving a helping hand and a listening ear. They laugh with us...and cry with us. Praise God for friends!
But sometimes we're separated from them. It may be a move, it may be a disagreement, it may just be complacency. And in this 21st century we live in, we have the unfortunate freedom to live rather autonomously, without communicating with anyone, despite the fact that we have the most advanced methods of communication to date! For example, my oldest sister lives three blocks from my office -- literally, three blocks. So, how often to I talk to her? About 3 or 4 times a year. How often do I see her? About once a year, at Christmas. Is that a cryin' shame, or what? (My mom is raisin' an "amen" to that -- I can hear it all the way from Washington! :-) Although we have better methods of communicating than ever before, we have become less likely to communicate than ever! We run around, doin' our own thing, secluding ourselves in our own little bubble, and our relationships just fall by the wayside. How tragic! We need connectedness, we need interaction, we need caring and sharing. (sorry to sound like a greeting card, but hey -- if the shoe fits...)
Paul was stuck in a Roman prison and needed connection. He wrote to Timothy and could hardly wait for his dear friend to visit him. He sent greetings to others through Timothy, friends he'd met along the way in his ministry. And he sent greetings from new friends he'd met in Rome. All these were friends God had given him and for whom he was very grateful. He worked hard at staying connected, because it was vital to his spirit -- and he had to write with a quill and ink -- imagine that! And then, it had to be sent via messenger who used the old-fashioned method of transportation -- FEET! Okay, maybe they also used a camel or a boat, but talk about s-l-o-w....
Today, we are blessed with virtually instant communication --cellphones, email, text-messaging and on-line chatting, and I encourage you to use all that you have to stay connected with friends and family. But please don't underestimate the power of face-to-face communication! Get together with friends and family, spend time sharing, loving, praying, singing -- lifting up God in your relationships and lifting each other up, as well. Fight the urge to hermitize yourself into a cocoon, thinking that good books and the TV are relationship enough in this difficult world.
For New Year's Eve 2008, I decided to have a party. I invited my worship team and small group friends, and boy, did we have fun! We laughed so hard playing games and watching a comedy DVD that we had to take breaks to catch our breath and recover! But more important than the temporary entertainment were the friendship connections that were strengthened in the midst of all the eating and laughing. Getting to know one another better, feeling more a part of each other's lives . . . that's good stuff, people.
We need each other -- it's the way we're wired. And God gave us the gift of friends and family to meet our relational needs. Let's not get lazy or complacent and let those gifts get rusty and dusty. Enjoy and nurture the relationships you have and be blessed a hundred times over! Who knows . . . maybe 2009 will be the year you host a party and be the initiator of some great connectedness!
Love,
Joelene
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