RELATIONAL CONNECTIONS THAT MATTER

 

Disconnected

“Tell your story.  Shout it. Write it.

Whisper it if you have to.  But tell it.

Some won't understand it.

Some will outright reject it.

But many will thank you for it.

And then the most magical thing will happen.

One by one, voices will start whispering, 'Me, too.'

And your tribe will gather.

And you will never feel alone again.” ---L.R. Knost

Johann Hari writes in his book Lost Connections that “Loneliness isn’t the physical absence of other people, it’s the sense that you’re not sharing anything that matters with anyone else. If you have lots of people around you - perhaps even a husband or wife, or a family, or a busy workplace - but you don’t share anything that matters with them, then you’ll still be lonely.”

Christianity is the only faith that teaches that God is one being that exists as three; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each being in this Trinity delights in and glorifies the other. This Triumvirate has related to each other for all eternity. When the Son was challenged by the religious leaders of the time regarding which of all the commandments and laws was the greatest, he simply responded that we should love God and others, i.e., we should be relational. After all, we were created in God’s image so we should expect parallels in our being.

We human beings like to relate to one another.  But there’s a time-honored truth that we can easily be alone in a crowd.  We have to meaningfully relate to the crowd, at least a segment of the crowd in our sphere of influence.  Small talk can be a nice ice breaker or useful when time is limited, but if we don’t have the opportunity and time to share those things that really matter in our life, we won’t experience the joy of truly connecting that we all need to survive.  We’ve probably all observed the loss of someone who lost all hope of connection, but we need to be reminded that a connection is always open to our Creator. 

And once we connect with those who are genuinely interested in what we share that matters in our lives, we become more genuinely relational and fulfill our destiny to be more involved in what matters to them.