Worth the Work
“Two are better than one.” Well, obviously, if you're talking about donuts or dollars...but people? Sometimes that doesn't feel true. Sometimes it seems like I could do more, faster, more efficiently by myself.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, wrote:
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. ”
A friend and pastor used to say that marriage was one of God's most effective tools to sculpt us into who He created us to be. I’d modify that to include whoever we are in a deep relationship with. Michelangelo once said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” That’s what God is doing with each of us. He knows what our “finished product” looks like and He’s removing everything else. Often the tools that He chooses are the people closest to us.
God made us to be in relationship with each other. He said right at the very beginning that it was not good for man to be alone. And just look at all the benefits of community listed in that Ecclesiastes passage: a good return on investment; help up when you've fallen; warmth in the cold, dark winter nights; and defense against attack.
Neil Tomba is a pastor who rode his bike (with a team of friends) across America, with the intention of listening to all kinds of people that God put in his path along the way. There were days when the needs of an individual on the team necessitated a major change of plans.
“When you are doing life together with others, you do go slower. But you also go farther. And you go places you would have never gone without them. ”
All of us experience the joys and sorrows of human relationships of all kinds. Friendships, coworkers, church family, biological and adopted family...these can all teach and stretch and carve away at us. I’m sure that’s why the New Testament writers had so much to say about how to live peacefully in community with each other. The Church was just getting started and they immediately needed relationship help.
“Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
It's tempting, and especially easy in these work-and-church-from-home days, to pull back from difficult relationships, to give up. Naturally, our first instinct is self-preservation; even beyond that, self-comfort. But like a hunk of marble that could someday become a beautiful sculpture, we have to stay in the Lord’s hands and trust His work if we want His plan for us to be completed. And that person who as someone once said, “bumps against my happy” may be just the tool that’s required.
In another analogy of the effect we can have on each other, the writer of Proverbs said:
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Sculpting tools, spurs, iron…notice a similarity? They’re all hard! Change rarely happens in our character by gentle means. But we don’t have to fear God’s hands or His methods. Jesus gave a preview of what this daily, step-by-step, life-changing work looks like.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
I know a yoke doesn’t sound very comfortable either. It makes me think of hard work. But Jesus is the One bearing the weight, and His promise is rest for our souls. So the pressure is on Him and He’s the one doing the hard work. We just need to be linked to Him, moment-by-moment following His lead, and being made in His image all over again.
