Connected

This has been a fantastic weekend. You can read more about the birthday excitement here. Here are a few thoughts as I’ve done some reflecting. The first is that I’ve realized how spending time with people you care about is so important to me. This weekend I’ve had the chance to actually hang out with friends for more than just grabbing a rushed meal. I realized how much a really miss that. I love every minute I get to catch up with friends, but there is something even more exciting about setting aside a chunk of time and just being together. After one day of just hanging out I feel more encouraged and energized than I have in months. God seems to keep driving home this idea of being a body.

I’ve realized how blessed I am to have rubbed shoulders with so many incredible people in my life. Some of these people it was one day on a music tour when we performed at their church. Some it was working along side them for a few years in ministry. Some of them are friends that I don’t have the opportunity to see but have left a mark in my life. And some I see more often and each time I drive away thanking God he has placed them in my life. Today I’ve thought about random people I’ve met over the last few years that are reflections of Christ and it has challenged me to think about whether or not I have been reflecting Christ in the same way.

Mark talked this weekend about how things we do and say have an affect on those around us. Even the little things we don’t think about do. This weekend I was hanging out with some friends and one of them left without saying goodbye and I was crushed. I thought about it and told myself that that person probably didn’t even realize they did. (This is most likely the case!) But it still was disappointing to me. Such a tiny thing that doesn’t seem like a big deal was to me. Have I thought about how my behavior affects others? A couple weeks ago some pieces came together for me and I realized how a couple tiny choices I’ve made over the last couple years had deeply impacted a very close friend of mine. Those two small decisions conveyed something much larger to this friend and in a way I think I really disappointed him. It isn’t always a negative affect. This week I did one thing that seemed like an insignificant thing to me and found out later it completely changed an individual’s day and helped them face some tough things. Did I know that when I took the two seconds to do it? No. One action impacted someone else in ways I didn’t expect.

To sum it up, we are connected. Will we disappoint others? Yes. Will others disappoint us? Probably. Should this change how we treat each other? Only to challenge us to love more and reach out to everyone we cross paths with. Sure we will miss the mark at times but that is why God has given us grace. He will teach us how to love. We just have to allow him to do it and be willing to respond.