Skip to main content

Friendship & Accountability

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Friendship and accountability go hand in hand. True friendship will tell you when you're wrong, or at least make you feel inside that you've missed the mark. That's what we want in Christian friendships. As believers, we want to keep growing in our knowledge of and walk with God. We want the fruits of the Spirit to be increasingly felt and seen in us. Most of all, we want to grow in our faith of God so that we can withstand the pain and hard realities of being humans in a fallen world. For this, we need our Christian community. We need brothers and sisters who will do life with us and become one "fold" in our cord.

The image of verse 12 brings to my mind a mythical story that describes how everyone's life is represented by a golden cord. In the story, when the supposed right time comes, a mythical being cuts a person's cord, and that person dies. I forgot where this myth comes from, but the imagery popped in my mind after reading the description of strong friendships in Ecclesiastes.
And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Hard times and spiritual forces attack us everyday, trying to "cut" our lifeline, or at least weaken it so that the next time we go through a trial, we snap and fall apart. When we have real Christian friendships, brothers and sisters wrapping their lives around each other's and getting involved in each other's personal space, we become stronger and the forces that try to "prevail" against us become ineffective.

God designs our close relationships with each other so that we are encouraged, supported, and strengthened. With this, we are not quickly broken. I'm reading Ecclesiastes today off the heels of joining a church small group last night, and I'm feeling pretty grateful. I pray we all find Christian friendships that will help us to be strong.

Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts and reflections spurred on by this post. :)

Popular posts from this blog

Comfort in Discomfort

Our small group chatted recently about a comment our pastor mentioned a few Sundays ago. The comment left some of us scratching our heads and trying to understand how we really  felt about it. Our pastor said that he's noticed a common thread stated by people who experience hardships. They all said they would not change their bad experiences because they now value the good lessons they learned following their trials. The common sentiment was that the pain and hard lessons were worth it in order to grow. I intellectually understood this point, but my physical and emotional, pain-understanding being, disagreed! Do I want to experience hurt and discomfort just to learn how to lean into God and understand that He is my shelter and Comforter? The answer is no , not really. I'd rather just know it. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works. We live with our human nature, ripe with opportunities for exercising freewill. This freewill can positively and negatively impact our live...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wisdom Walk

I'm reading Proverbs 4 and 5 and some of the takeaway points were: (1) learn about wisdom and instruction, (2) let your whole body be in submission to wisdom, and (3) embrace correction Proverbs 4 implores us to get wisdom and understanding. We learn from this chapter that King Solomon's "father" taught Solomon the value of gaining wisdom and the dangers of ignoring it. ( Proverbs 4:3-4 ) "Wisdom is the principal thing" which sets you up for promotion, honor, grace and glory. ( Proverbs 4:7-9 ) If we want all of these good things, we need to be given wisdom and shown the right paths. We need to be teachable. Proverbs 4 is written in a dual way where it's implied that Solomon was taught by his father King David. We can also read Solomon's words and see him speaking metaphorically as a "father" to us. This writing style was oddly soothing because it helped me get past the thoughts of - well, what should people do if they don't hav...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Expanse

I participated in a Zoom prayer call tonight with other women at my church and at the end I just had that feeling of loveliness. It felt good, it felt connected, and it made me want to connect with God even more. I opened my Bible and read Jeremiah 2:2 .  Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” My thoughts after reading this was: Lord increase my wonder of You.  When things are brand new we have a strong urge to learn more, seek more, engage more. When the shine wears off, we become complacent and less interested. Maybe it’s because we feel we’ve learned all we need to know. Maybe it’s because we are too comfortable in the now. Maybe it’s because we can’t see the possibility of there being so much more for us to gain.  When it comes to my spirit and You, God, please open my eyes to see the expanse of all that you have for me to...
Post a Comment
Read more