ALIVE!

Being alone is not something that I enjoy.  Sure, I like my quiet times  in the morning and I even enjoy the short spurts of being home alone when the house is all quiet and I can do whatever I want (this doesn't happen very often). I also enjoy going shopping or to the bookstore alone at times, but all in all, I do not desire to spend my days by myself.  This is because God designed us to be bonded to others.  It is what keeps us "alive".  If we are alone and not in relationship with others, we will become stagnant, not growing, essentially dead.  When we are in loving relationships with others, we are alive and growing.  When we are not, we are slowly dying inside.  On my desk, I have a small picture frame that says, " Above all else guard your heart for it is the well spring of life"  Proverbs 4:23 .

Hmmm....if our heart is the well spring of life and  we are designed to be in relationship with others then our heart is essential to living.  I am not talking about being physically alive, we all do that everyday, I am talking about being ALIVE!!!  There is no other word for it other than ALIVE!!!

It is impossible to be ALONE and be ALIVE!  It can't be done.  God made us to be in community and relationship together.  But our natural tendency when we feel tension or friction in any situation is to pull away.  When we have tension in our jobs or at home, we pull away, when we have tension with others, we pull away from them.  That is the last thing we ought do.  God wants us to go to one another and express our needs and desires. He wants us to draw close to one another and bond.  This is very important for us to grow.  He also desires us to reach out to others.  Show others that we care by being there for them, especially when they are just doing everyday life.  Usually we tend to be in our own little worlds until something drastic happens. Someone gets sick or has a family emergency. Someone loses their job or has an accident and we go running to their aid. This is wonderful and I am not saying that we shouldn't do this, but why only when there is an emergency?  

There are many things in life that set us back and we all usually go running to one another to help out.  But when the "shock" of what has happened wears off and we get back to our normal lives, the person that needed us seems to be holding up okay or we see so many others helping, we think that we aren't needed.  This is so not true.  We need to be in fellowship daily whether there is a "storm in our life" or not. Especially when there is not a storm in our lives, because that is when we become stagnant, that is when we become dead and not growing.