June 14, 2010
Bind Us Together
I’m still on the prayer chain of XYZ Church and I appreciate being able to remain connected to them in a prayerful way. When a recent email request came through, my eyes were drawn to the list of addressees and I discovered that more than half of those on the list were no longer affiliated with that church. While a few had moved out of town, others had moved to various local congregations in the community. I love the fact that even though we no longer physically worship together, we can still be brought together by a call to worship in prayer.
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Gail;
-----God bless you. You are connected to XYZ Church in more than a prayerful way. Jesus did not intend for His church to become disconnected by locations and proximities. Even more, He did not intend them to become disconnected by concepts, programs, and theologies. These are all things of personality, nothing more. One person thinks in the way he knows best and enjoys the company of those with whom he is most acquainted, and another does likewise. But what we know and who we know are not to become walls. Yet, they remain obstacles. And obstacles are easily confused with walls.
-----Love is the universal solvent for all obstacles. Love best flows through the course defined by need. When Jesus said we are to love our enemies, He was speaking of meeting their needs. Even though we allow our very definition of “need” to become walls as well, when we are open to what another defines as a need in his own terms, we open a channel for love to begin dissolving a wall. It is not that we become some kind of universal carpet to throw down before anyone who seeks whatever step forward might be made for him to be the most comfortable. It is more that, together with the other person, we try to discover the actual definition of what his need might be and where its solution can be found. This is why the love in one searches to know the other person as much as it seeks to give him what one knows.
-----And that is why prayer is a great channel for love. Often we do not have or know what the other really needs. If we did, what we have would just be delivered. So we pray about the needs for which we have no abundance of supply. To pray about those needs we must know about them, and to pray more effectively about them we must know them better. Discovering these needs and learning them more intimately brings us into closer, affectionate proximity with those in need. And hopefully that proximity is sought enough that it actually begins to effect the physical distances our church properties and religious concepts maintain for us. Jesus meant for us to be connected by love, no matter what obstacles work to separate us. And prayer is that first response from love. Don’t let the response stop there.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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