STRENGTHEN THE STRAND

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

This topic of COMMUNITY (one another/each other/doing life together) keeps coming up.  

It has become the centerpiece of my presentations regarding the opiate epidemic and our faith involvement.  It came up again in a briefing I had with the Attorney General’s team from West Virginia last week.

Community is key!

Life together is a blessing and offers opportunities for healing!

Friendship fuels health, happiness, and hope!

Pastor Mark from Xenia even hit the topic again this past Sunday as he stressed once more the “R” in his CHURCH series acrostic (Relationships). He even closed yesterday’s talk with a familiar verse to the OFH reader…

By yourself you’re unprotected.

With a friend you can face the worst.

Can you round up a third?

A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped. – Ecclesiastes 4:12 (MSG)

Vanier once said,

“A Christian community should do as Jesus did: propose and not impose. Its attraction must lie in the radiance cast by the love... 

And that radiance is often GENERATED by a loving community burning brightly by the fuel of friendships! 

So, true.

I heard an interesting talk on Saturday while attending a fundraiser for Good Shepherd Ministries in Dayton (http://thegsm.net/)

The speaker, a Doctor and professor from the University of Dayton, quoted an encouragement from Pope Francis.  To paraphrase (and clearly there is intensely more behind and attached to this quote), she said that the POPE encourages the practice of the “ART of ACCOMPANIMENT”.

Let that sink in within the context of our Ecclesiastes encouragement and our recent focus of the impact of COMMUNITY on our challenges and on each other. 

What if we practiced that phrase, “the art of accompaniment”?  

Doesn’t that connoted togetherness?

Doesn’t that encourage a posture of artful connection with one another?

I do like the phrase.

The question is will WE embrace the art of accompaniment?

Implicitly it puts the onus on us to pursue accompaniments; to seek to be a friend to others, to help where and when we can help, to come alongside, to connect, to "strengthen the strand".

Shakespeare penned,

“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow."

I like that one too.

So, the question again is WILL YOU practice the art of accompaniment?

Will you friend someone?

Strengthen the strands?

I pray that you will!

Remember…

…you don’t need me to tell you what to do. You’re God-taught in these matters. Just love one another!

1 Thessalonians 4:10 (MSG)

And those strands indeed will be strengthened.

Have a blessed day.

I love you all!

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE