Relational Breakdown

For most of my life, I have felt like a loner.  I have friends but most of them seem to be friends of convenience.  What I mean by this is friends at work, church, and through my wife.  I don't want to come across as cynical but I always feel like the friends I have are only there because of the shared connection.  I believe that I have come to this belief because of the multiple times this has been true in the many moves of my life.  I can count on one hand the friends I have in my life in whom I believe wouldn't change or disappear if I moved towns, jobs, or churches.  

I had a brief conversation at work today about one of my coworker's disdain for cars.  I made the case that cars were wonderful and that no one would really want to go back to walking and/or riding in a horse and buggy but she claimed that she would.  We continued the talk by discussing how going back to a horse and buggy time wouldn't be all bad because everything would've been much closer.  Our towns would shrink back to the horse and buggy radius.  You would only know a limited amount of people because of a limited travel ability and it would be necessary to depend on the people you knew because of these limits.

It is so hard for me to conceive of a time when everyone in a town knew everybody else.  I think for most of my life these towns have been disappearing.  With the telephone, the automobile, airplanes, and the computer, we have had the ability to travel and communicate in ways not really imagined by most of historic humanity.  Ironically in all this new found travel and communication breakthroughs most of us in the western world have actually reverted to a state of less personal and real communication and friendships.  

The distance has created more of an opportunity to not communicate instead of an opportunity to meet more people.  The cell phones, texting, internet, and more have seemingly created an impersonal form of communication that makes us feel connected and yet has succeeded to make most of our friendships superficial.  We find ourselves wanting to communicate through text, emails, and within massively multiplayer online role playing games instead of meeting people, calling people, or even picking up a pen and writing a personal message.  Many of us have become recluses from direct contact desiring to only develop deep relationships through a computer or cellphone screen.

The implications to Christianity, in my opinion, has been devastating.  Many of our friendships within the church are acquaintance level at best.  We no longer want to take the time to know how the person next to us in the pew is actually doing.  We have lost the community aspect of church.  We also have developed a great fear of deep conversation with another human being in the flesh.  The idea of having to go out meet people and tell them about Jesus terrifies the average church goer today.  

If Jesus, the disciples, Paul, and all the prophets of the Old Testament had been afraid of human interaction or having tough discussions, Christianity would not exist today.  Christianity requires relationships.  There is no other way to truly show another person the love of Jesus that resides within you.  If you find yourself falling into any of these traps that tend to pull you into yourself and away from others, I implore you to run to Jesus and pray that He open your heart to His will.  Paul said in Romans chapter 10:14-15, "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news," is taken from Isaiah 52:7.  The Bible always intended for us to tell the good news to others.  This was the original purpose of the Hebrews.  They were to be the people who would demonstrated God's glory to the world.  Jesus also came to demonstrate God's glory to the world.  Through these examples we can see the importance of us demonstrating God's glory to the world.  Though I do believe that texting, Facebook, twitter, etc can have a positive influence in evangelism, a direct personal relationship will always be the most effective tool for the kingdom of Christ.  Spending the time to share your life with another and live Jesus' love to them is ultimately the most effective way to touch a person for Christ.  So I hope you will turn off you computer, cell phone, and tv for a while, even if it means taking a break from my blog ;), and go out to spend some time with people in the flesh, and share the love and salvation Jesus gave to you.  Like in the picture at the beginning of this blog, you may be the one who has the opportunity to reach down and help a brother off the steep cliff they are struggling with.

Blessings,

Greg