Life Together/Love Uniting

As we discussed last time, we need to surrender to God to grow in holiness. We need to trust in God. We need to live with God. And this sounds easy enough, since God is a perfect divine being who desires our good more than we even desire it for ourselves. But then we learn what trusting in God means: Among other things, it means living as part of the community of Jesus’ Body, the Church. And while being in communion with God, or even the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in heaven, might seem like an easy thing to ask, sharing a pew with real people doesn’t seem nearly as attractive. Yet to surrender to God means to take this step. Why would God ask us to do this?
 
There are many reasons God asks us to live in community, but I’ll focus on just two here. The first is that love, particularly the self-giving love of Jesus we are called to imitate, always needs a tangible target. We cannot love humanity; we can only love individual people. If those individual people are sometimes hard to love, so much the better—it makes the sacrificial self-giving more meaningful. The second is that a healthy community provides accountability, and accountability is a prerequisite for growth in holiness. As anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you, being honest about your failings with a group of people and striving to support each other are crucial steps to recovery in their fight against the addiction to alcohol. In the same way, it’s crucial to find a group of fellow believers with whom you can be honest about your struggles with sin, and who pray with you and for you.
 
Challenge: Think of one or two close Christian friends you have with whom you can be honest about your failings and struggles, and resolve to have those conversations with them. If you don’t have friends like that, do church activities until you find some.