call on community

having community is essential in life, and it is of even greater essence as a believer in Christ. life is too hard to do alone, friends – good thing that’s not how life was intended to be lived! in the beginning when God made man He said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him’ (Genesis 2:18). surely, if we can know that life is too hard to do alone then the God who created the universe knew it as well.

a verse that is great for the importance of community is Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 because it says ‘two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? and though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him – a threefold cord is not quickly broken.’

to me, community was always just surrounding myself with people and i thought i had that. i’ve always had a lot of friends, from always being on sports teams to just simply being a very outgoing and extroverted person. but, now as i’ve gotten older my circle, my community, has gotten smaller. i’ve realized the importance of this verse, of what a true community looks like. when i was in my early years of college and away from my best friends back home, i had new communities, my baseball teams, and i didn’t go into college with the right mindset. i wanted to have my fun now and have Jesus later. without a community of believers around me, who knew the real me, it is not surprising that i took the ‘have fun now’ route. my choices were my choices, as yours were yours – our pasts aren’t a blame game. though, i do believe our sphere of community has a great influence on us. when i was in my freshman and sophomore year of college i didn’t make the best choices. i had community, just not the right kind. not the kind that wanted to chase after Jesus, not the kind that would speak truth to me on a saturday morning, not the kind that would just blatantly ask me ‘what are you doing?’.

college is challenging. you are finally able to make all the decisions you want to make, and of course you will choose wrong at times. for me, trying to balance going to class, going to practices and workouts or games, getting your homework and studying in is a lot. i never had Sunday’s off from practices or workouts or games in college, so if i wanted to go to church i would have to go at 6 at night. i would rarely attend because if i did it would be by myself, or i was too exhausted i would tell myself, and it was easy for me to believe that because everyone else was too. i didn’t have anyone pushing me to go to church, including myself. eventually, church and God became the smallest they had ever been in my life because i wouldn’t go, nor did i have anyone pushing me to make the right choices.

you become what you surround yourself with. you don’t have to get to a point of brokenness to change your life. surrounding yourself with a life-giving community full of love, grace and truth. you want a community that will correct you, out of love, not applaud you. you want a community of brothers and sisters that picks one another up out of the pit, that keeps each other warm, that are pursuing the best thing in this life. build your community around Jesus, for ‘behold, how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity’ (Psalm 133:1).

-n0tbychance