One of the many components to living life as Jesus promised is your relationships.
You might have “success” in other areas, but if your relationships are miserable and you are making the journey all alone, your life is less than it could be. God made us for relationships with Him and others. It is impossible to be fulfilled without them.
King David wrote, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)
Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)
The vertical relationship between you and God is an essential part of a meaningful life. The horizontal relationship follows by walking in closeness with one another. Some try to live in isolation, having acquaintances but no one close. A 2006 University of Chicago study showed that 25 percent of Americans have no close friends — how sad.
Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NLT), “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.”
The message of Easter is about restoring humans to a relationship with God. Genesis says Adam sinned and sin’s penalty is death. Even without personal sin, Jesus died that our relationship with God, and thereby others, could be restored.
I pray you will be motivated to accept God’s provision for sin and establish a personal relationship with Him; share your life with people of wisdom, character and compassion, distancing yourself from friendships that drag you down; examine the kind of friend you are and can become; become that kind of friend and reap the rewards.
Take some time today to send a message of love. If you don’t know how to say it, maybe you can begin with Paul’s words to his friends in Philippi, “I thank my God every time I remember you. (Philippians 1:3 NIV)
The Rev. Don Sauls is Pastoral Care coordinator at Lenoir Memorial Hospital. Reach him at DSauls@lenoir.org.