Communal God
A God of community is a God who favors interdependency.
Dear friend,
The world around you, and the one from within, wars on to convince you that the ideal world is one where you don’t need another.
Some will tell you “you’re enough.”
So why have I always struggled to believe them?
A young man who had the world in the palm of his hand asked Jesus, “what good do I have to do to live forever with you?”
To which Jesus replied, “only God is good… if you want His life, just do what He says”
“I have… what do I still lack?”
“Give away all you have to those in need, and you won’t regret it; come, follow me.”
When the man heard this, he left devastated, for he had much.1
We want much… many of us have much… but like the guy who seems to have everything, we’re still asking what else do I lack?
What more must I do to fill that soul deep ache stirring inside?
About a year ago, a friend asked me “how are you?”
The question hung in the air for a moment before I responded quickly with the first thing that came to mind.
As we often do.
And in truth, whatever my response was… it wasn’t remarkable enough to remember.
But during that car ride, to the tune of the rumbling rural roads beneath the tires, I recall his follow up question, “is there a story in the Bible that you think might relate to what you describe?”
And again, another silence hung in the space.
But this time I didn’t fill it. I stared at the digital clock and watched as minute by minute past by… before I confessed… “I don’t know.”
And he replied, “would it be okay if I told you what I see?”
“Yes,” I said… anything to do away with the discomfort of feeling dumbfounded.
“Maybe you’re the rich young ruler,” he paused and slightly shifted gaze, giving me an opportunity to disagree. But I couldn’t.
He began to suggest that unlike the material riches of the man in the story, my currency looks more like relationships, social capital and connections that have become what I am most afraid of losing… most unwilling to entrust back to God.
Jagged and slow streams began to glide across my face, my cheeks and my chin warmed by a water I didn’t know my eyes had been storing up.
There was nothing I could think to say in that moment.
Only the nod and the grace of exposure—what a kindness that leads to repentance, when God uses those around us to remind us that He knows us better than we know ourselves.2
We need others who see us—our secrets and hidden interests—the stuff we shove in the closet, hoping no one will open the door.
God loves us through the people in our lives who recognize our pain points and speak hard things we don’t want to believe others can see.
I will never forget the words my mom spoke to me when I returned home after my first year of college… angsty about “what wasn’t as it should’ve been” in my childhood, and angry about “what was…”
Many my age sit in the same or similar tension. How do I love my parents while grieving their imperfections, while healing from my own hurt.
Many parents, like my mom, feel resigned and helpless to know how to restore what they didn’t realize needed resolution.
I couldn’t tell you what particular pain I felt led to unload on my mom that afternoon.
What I will not forget, is her response: “I’ve accepted that I will never be enough.”
I recoiled. Certainly she did not just say that to me. Why is she making this about herself?
I initially shrunk, having felt shame over the words that gave her freedom. Through the various follow-up conversations, where we’ve continued to pull up seats to the table, I have since come to realize… she’s right.
I too… “will never be enough…” I will always lack in my own self.
But what a grace, that our spirit quietly whispers the answer to what we were made to experience… what in us resembles the One who made us… the need for others.
What was once offense to my mom’s words, has become also to me, a freeing reminder that as much as I strive to “be all things to all people…” I alone as me, am “not enough.”3
How could I be?
So then, I am free.
Free to loosen the grip I’ve had on the future—mine and others’
Free to let go of the weight no one asked me to carry on their behalf
Free to stop pretending that the person I want to be is who I am
Free to depend on the One who doesn’t break a sweat when needy people call His name, arrogant ones curse it and profane, and weak ones cry out in pain…
He is enough.
And even He is three—never alone, never divided, always in community.
Dear friend,
If you’re in it for the long haul, here for a life of following Jesus…
You’ve got to know where it begins and ends… with Him… and you cannot walk with Him without His Bride—the Church.
To the bedrock of the Church He was building, He said “if you love me… feed my sheep.”4 If we love Him, we are called to love those who belong to Him.
Broken as she may be, “beloved” is she, in the eyes of Jesus, whose blood was the bride price that purchased her from death and sin—to life and communion with Him.
If you too, are tired of spinning, tired of playing pretend, tired of having much and feeling nothing, perhaps this truth, that alone “you are not enough” is simply the permission you need… to let your eyes close, to fall to your knees, and to have ears to hear, that needing others is good.
That what Jesus wants for you and for me, is a life that is “very good.”5
And why is it good?
Because Jesus never thought, I don’t need my Father.
And His Father never said He could do without Their Spirit.
God is not alone, not self-sufficient, not beating to the rhythm of His own drum.
He has always been and will forever be, in community—why would He have designed us any differently?
You’re in good company.
If you’re awake enough to realize that the accusations being thrown at you, come from an enemy whose delight is to “steal, kill and destroy” God’s design community.6
Friend,
Take heart.
In your travels, contentments, and persisting questions, may you never forget that no good thing, does God withhold from those who walk with Him.7
Shalomie homie,
Matthew 19v16-26, MSG.
Romans 2v4, NIV.
1 Corinthians 9v19-23, NIV.
Note: the words wrapped around this statement that some, like myself, become slaves to people-pleasing because of… are couched in the context of neediness unto God and unto a body of people we belong to (because of who He is), not mere individuals operating in isolation with their selfish motives and interests, without willingness or want… to share in the life of Christ. The context of this passage, rests in the saving work of the Spirit, not our striving for affection or searching for man’s approval.
John 21v15-17, NIV.
Genesis 1-2, NIV.
John 10v10, NIV.
Psalm 84v11, NIV.