READING: Ecclesiastes 1-4
By nature, I’m a loner. I started working a simple job when I was still in elementary school (doing chores in a “pony keg,” a type of convenience store of the 1960s), worked throughout high school, moved out of my home when I was 20 years old, then lived as a single adult for ten years before I married — and I learned to take care of myself. Couple my loner tendencies with my highly introverted personality, and you might figure me out: I know intellectually and theologically that I need people, but I don’t like to admit it. In my sinfulness, I sometimes equate need with weakness.
Then I read the words of the Teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes, and I’m challenged deeply: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Prov 4:9-12). You see, I know these truths. I know that when two walk together, they can help one another up if they fall. I know they can help take care of one another, providing warmth in the cold (a picture of necessity when traveling in the ancient world, not a sexual image) and protection in a fight. I know, in fact, that having even more close friends builds only stronger bonds. I know all these truths, and I teach them to others.
I even tell the guys I mentor that there is great value in our walking together. What I forget sometimes, though, is that I need these relationships as much my mentees need them. None of us, beginning with me, should be fighting battles alone — especially spiritual ones.
ACTION STEPS:
- If you have no one who walks with you at the level the Teacher describes in Ecclesiastes 4, ask God to give you such a person. Even those of us who are married benefit from having someone of the same gender who walks with us as a brother or sister in Christ.
- If you’re a loner like I tend to be, ask God to break you of your self-dependence.
PRAYER: “God, thank You for the clarity of Your Word. Help me to live by it.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Ecclesiastes 5-8