NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

May 19 - Find a buddy, II

Scripture focus: Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NIV)

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

Joan Didion

The transformation process is a lot like taking an extended field trip into a foreign land – it's best to go with people who can at least speak the language. It helps to recruit some independent and unbiased buddies who will help us navigate the currents of change.

One of the elements that keep us stuck is secrecy. Our inner dialogue, hidden from view and not open to the scrutiny of a more objective listener, leads to our undoing. And when our dialogue is amiss, our daily lives will be a mess.

Community can kill the secret. It decreases our ability to keep fooling ourselves.

Our passage from death and dying to life and abundant living cannot be a private thing. I know people like to tell me that if they have God, God is all they need. But I believe that God's word reveals that part of "having God" means that we create and live within the context of a community of grace.

It's within these consecrated communities that we both tell and listen to stories. These communities unite in commitment to their desire for God. They admit the temptation and gravitational pull to fill the spaces in the heart reserved for God with other attachments.

This doesn't automatically make the community perfect. But it does allow for the community to collectively desire transformation. So on days when my lips can't manage to utter a prayer, someone else is praying on my behalf. When I am in conflict, someone else is at peace. When I can't love, someone else can and does. I'm not saying this is easy. But I am asking us to consider that it is probably easier than trying to live in isolation.

Recommended reading: Psalm 29-31

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