Community… oftentimes we look for community to fulfill an innate desire in us to be around people, to feel needed and wanted, to feel a part of something (often bigger than ourselves), and simply for friendship and love. All these things are so true, community should be these things because we were created to be in community, NOT alone. Without community we will often feel empty, feel lacking, feel alone (certainly there are exceptions of people who lived a “hermit” lifestyle, but in general these things hold true). Community is so vital and necessary for people in all cultures and in all walks of life.
BUT…
At it’s core community isn’t for us to inherently feel great or fulfilled and affirmed by others or feel like a part of something but it’s to display God’s glory and goodness through the sweetness of friendship, unity, and love between His created people!
For the past month, maybe months, I had been missing this truth. I was beginning to feel broken and be broken because I was expecting community to fulfill the basic necessities of community (friendship, love, being a part of something, feeling needed/wanted, etc), but I was forgetting that community will only bring those things when we allow it to display God’s glory and goodness. I was pressuring myself and expecting myself to be community, to enhance community, to do certain things in community, but I was starting to do it out of obligation and wanting to feel a part of something instead of doing it to glorify God and bring about the sweetness of His joy, unity, and love. No longer was community about God, but it was about doing and feeling certain things instead of allowing God to always be those things in me, through me, and in my community.
Because the thing is that when God’s glory and goodness in community is fully displayed all the aforementioned desires of community will become true. You will feel good. You will feel fulfillment and affirmation. You will feel a part of something.
BUT…
It’s not because of the community…
Let me say that again…
It’s NOT because of the community
Rather, it’s because of what God is doing in and through community and how He created community to display more and more of His love and glory. Just as the Trinity is perfect community and displays God perfectly, so earthly community in all forms (marriage, friendship, college dormitory, apartment complex, church, workplace, etc) is to mirror this display of God and who He is and glorify Him by looking as much like Him and His deep communal love as possible. Community glorifying God will make you feel good because God is good. Community glorifying God will bring you fulfillment and affirmation because God is the ultimate provider of those things and the sole being who can provide you with perfect fulfillment and affirmation because He created you in His image, He loves you before you came into existance and you can’t change that love or lessen that love (You were knit together in the womb, you were fearfully and wonderfully made, while you were still a sinner Christ died for you, NOTHING can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus…). AND you will feel a part of something because you will be a part of something, not just the earthly community, but more importantly the heavenly community, the Family of God, the Body of Christ, where everything will one day come together in perfect harmony and love and there will no longer be dissension, anger, fear, hatred, malice, disunity, and the like, but only perfect love, perfect joy, perfect unity, perfect harmony, love-saturated words of life, and so much more.
Community will heal your wounds and be your family when, and only when, you allow God to be glorified in your community and truly display His greatness, glory, love, and goodness, when you allow God to be the fulfillment of all your needs instead of expecting community, sans God, to fulfill those needs.
Grace and Peace
Psalm 147:3 – [The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Zechariah 8:4-5 – Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.
Isaiah 40:29-31- [The Lord] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint
