What We Communicate

The following is a follow up to my recent post titled, “The Phone Call.”

Have you ever been in this position?

You: (calling) Hey How are you? Sorry I missed you, but I’m just wondering if you might like to get together over coffee? Would love to catch up and by the way, I’m buying. Anyway, hope you and your family are doing alright. Talk to you soon. Bye.

And you wait. And not to be a pest or to sound desperate, you wait some more. 24 hours goes by. Then 48 hours, then 72, etc., etc., etc. You get the drift.

Why are we like this? What is it that keeps us from connecting? Fear, laziness, worry over vulnerability. I just can’t figure the whole thing out.

I mean, is everyone else just really self-sufficient and capable of living as an island? Is it just me that craves connection?

Don’t get me wrong, I have been known to be quite the island myself. I can live the solitary quite well thank you very much. But it never lasts that long. And frankly, living with my two favorite girls makes it so I can’t live in my man cave too long. Being perfectly honest too, I just can’t go it alone.

Perfection has never been an issue with me, though I have been told I have perfectionist tendencies by people who definitely recognize it when they see it. I simply am incapable of perfection. What about you?

Where am I am going with this you ask?

Well, since we established previously that we (as human, and even more so as Christians) not only crave connection, but truly were meant to live in connection as a community, then why do we so easily avoid it. Why do we not answer the phone? Why do we keep our thoughts to ourselves when our spirit presses us in that certain spot to reach out to others?

You see, when I hear that “still small voice” call out to me that I need to reach out, I’m trying hard to follow through. Because I know (just like you probably do as well) that there are those moments where our strength is running low and the tears of frustration, and worry, and unfulfilled dreams just gets to be too much. It’s in those moments that we long for someone to give us a call, give us an unasked for hug, a word of encouragement. We just long to know someone else gets it.

Don’t get me wrong. Just like you, I reach out in prayer to my savior. Just like you I am often on my knees. And like you, I trust Jesus. He has never failed me, or you. He has walked with us through our deepest valleys and he has walked with us through our greatest joys. And, he will (just as promised) never leave us or forsake us.

But, (oh, you knew this was coming right?) we are his hands and feet this side of eternity. We are commanded to love one another. And, not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of those who are in need around us.

As I heard it once said in a song that I still love, “We may be the only Jesus that some around us may ever know.” And for you more technical types, yeah I know we aren’t Jesus, just his representatives. We are his adopted children. And he adopted us when we were still messed up.

So please, stop ignoring those phone calls, those texts, those sad looks. Reach out and press into the messiness. You may find Christ’s love setting that heart of yours on fire again. You may rekindle it in someone else’s heart too.

Just do it.

Mike Meehan – 9/23/2014