Connections, Connections!

“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.” (John 15:5 HCSB)

Connections, connections, connections—I’m thinking about connections and I hope by the time you finish reading this sentence you too are thinking about connections.  What kind of connections am I talking about?  The relational kind of connections all human beings have to have.  When I think about being in relationships I immediately think about Jesus’ and how he is the vine and we are the branches.  Jesus was focused on being relational and there is a reason for this.  Jesus is himself a relational being—he is part of the Holy Trinity.  God is a triune being, three in one and does nothing outside of relationship.  I know this is a difficult thought, but think about how we are made in his image we too must be in relationship.  Think about this in prison for punishment we place someone alone in solitary confinement.  We even punish our children by making them stand alone in the corner.  It is known isolating a person for long periods of time is detrimental to their mental condition.  I always think about the movie “Castaway” where Tom Hanks character is desperate for human contact and makes a friend out of a volleyball which he names “Wilson”.  We cannot live without connections.      

    

In our culture today we are connected more than any other culture in history.  We have “social” networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat just to name a few.  We send thousands of text message to one another and yet we are largely disconnect more than ever.  Here is what has happened, we have created “safe places to connect without all the emotional risk.  We pick and choose the time to connect, how we connect, who we connect with.  The truth is connecting with people is messy business.  Entering into a relationship with someone involves risk.  People will let us down, they will hurt our feelings and disappoint over time.  We a broken people making the best out of a broken situation—yet we need relationship—real connections with real people.    

Which makes a relationship with Christ all the more important—it has to start with Christ.  A relationship with Jesus starts by changing of your heart and is initiated by him.  He changes us, he extends grace and forgiveness, and he shows us mercy.  We were powerless and he took pity on us and recused us.  He draws us into a deep relationship with himself and gives us peace.  From our relationship with Jesus we can connect with others in an entirely different way.  We don’t have to connect with others to find our peace and to complete us—we have peace and completeness in Christ.  We are free to love people deeply despite the brokenness.  We love, because we are loved.  We extend forgiveness because Christ forgave us.  We connect with others because Christ connected with us in a deep and personal way. 

I want to challenge you to take the time to connect with Christ.  Spend time in his word, read the gospels and pray to him.  Next take the time to meet with someone you love.  Take your spouse out to dinner, put the phone away.  Do something special with your kids or just get up and make pancakes with them.  Connecting doesn’t have to be complicated—it just requires your time and attention.  Reach out to others face to face, take the risk and truly connect with someone.  Let’s make 2016 a year where we focus on truly loving God and others—fully connected