Day 48 - Tony's Community
Scripture focus: Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load. Galatians 6:1-5 NIV
Since we've picked Tony's story to pieces, let's give him a break and turn our attention to his community. Did you ever think about the decisions a community makes in the face of suffering? We've been given a call - be the kind of community that is in the business of restoration. Do it gently. Be careful or we'll end up in a pickle. If we restore appropriately, we're doing the will of God. If we don't, we're opening ourselves up to self-deception. The process requires constant re-evaluation. When the test reveals that we've done a decent job - we can celebrate - without the need to compare and compete with other communities. That's cool! (See Galatians 6:1-4)
This restoration business is tough. Along the way, we'll have plenty of opportunities to mess up. That's ok, if we use our bloopers and blunders as teachable moments. I'm grateful that most of the time we try to embrace our learning opportunities instead of picking at each other, finding fault and thereby limiting our productivity. Here are a few of the wonderful things I know are true of Tony's home study group.
Each person in Tony's group has experienced suffering. This means that within this group there are probably some hard-core suffering experiences to share. Some are productive; others cyclical. If the group embraces the high calling of suffering productively, they can become encouragers to Tony. No group is perfect. So without any knowledge of this, I have to assume that within any group there is always the potential to deceive self and others. If there's a cyclical sufferer in the group, it's possible that Tony could get some shoddy feedback. But you know what? Even that's ok! There's power in numbers. I trust that our groups learn from even bad restoration attempts. If we keep on keeping on, even group shortcomings will be revealed and responded to appropriately. Fortunately, this community is committed to seeking and finding - both God and solutions. We read and study and pray and attend groups and participate in all sorts of educational opportunities. This increases the odds that Tony will seek and find someone who can give him a hand up. People who have suffered tend to respond in one of two ways: they become bitter or better. I have no doubt that Tony ended up in a "better" group (of course, I think that's true of all our groups!). Even in the midst of hardship, I regularly hear our fellow sojourners speaking words of thanksgiving, appreciation and gratitude. Rarely does someone in our community find it necessary to belittle and bemoan. Maybe we cry in public in ways that make others uncomfortable and laugh in ways that cause others to squirm. But here's another thing we do: we are compassionate. That's special. We also make a lot of mistakes; we're a messy lot. Once in awhile we relapse - and cause great distress to our family. Sometimes we isolate and disconnect, depriving our group of the warmth of our presence. We get our feelings hurt. Sometimes we hurt someone else's feelings. I guess all this messiness is to say that Tony got it right - for many of us, NSC is a second family (with the good and not-quite-right parts that all real families experience). It's my prayer that you will find the community God has for you. May you learn how to embrace it as fully as your hurts, habits and hang-ups will allow. In fact, it's my prayer that God will do for you what you can't do for yourself - enabling you to love with his love, and receive his love from his people - messiness and all!
Recommended reading: Leviticus 3 and 4 in the morning; Psalm 36 and Proverbs 10 in the evening
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