Has God Connected us?
Relationships can be the most precious, fragile and defining things we can have in our lives. More then that though, I believe many of our relationships are Holy God created connections. Some may believe that coincidence plays a role in connecting people together but for me I believe that God actively tries to intervene in the formation of many of our relationships. “Relationships in the Kingdom, I believe, are not an accident; rather God has created very special people for us to 'be joined with', and he himself will chose them for us so that we can bond.”
Wolfgang Simson wrote once, “Recently a group of friends met in our living room to pray together into a very special question: “With whom shall we work together in the future”. Our group was not defined by membership in any common organization, so we did not come to pray for survival, direction or transformation of something that does exist. We were bound together by four things:
1. Common vision
2. Common values (not doctrines)
3. Proximity
4. Friendship.
We just prayed: “Jesus, please help us identify the ones we are created to work with in the harvest, and save us from working with people that just want to draw us into ´their thing´”.
So do you or I have these four things in common? Do you or I have these things in common with others? If so we need to cultivate it, pray for it and let God's Spirit breathe on it. Somewhere along the line a foot must be placed on the spade and a clod of earth turned over. Some effort is required for relationships such as this. All four things listed above are very general and quite practical, but very real. They can be left alone and grown wild but may do better cultivated and cared for.
“A minimum of organization for a maximum of organism.”
At the same time life does change and move on. Relationships, form, develop, mature and then move on. A lot of friendships go through a life cycle as our lives, beliefs, and activities and location change. Sometimes life is about letting things die / reseed / reflect and then starting again with new passion, new appreciation and a new world view of what God our Father is doing through us together..
In conclusion, I would sum up by saying seed some prayer into your relationships and some effort. Do not be careless with what God has gifted you (I speak to myself here!).
The quotes are from Wolfgang Simson's article With whom, then shall we work?
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Hello.
I really enjoy reading your blog. ^_^
My spiritual father always say, eagles has two wings, one wing is "vision" and another wing is "relationship". If you want to fly high and fly well, you will need to have both and know the balance between vision and relationship. (He also say eagles have two wings, one wing is "Word" and one wing is "Spirit" If you hope to fly high and fly well, you will need to have both and know how to balance too).
God puts friends around us for reasons. And it is very important for us to asked God why He put he/she in our life. Every church can't only have "friendship", we need to have common vision together. And, we also have different calling for our life, that is the beauty of the body of Christ, so we come together and support each other's callings (visions). Also, we don't want to only have visions then forget about relationship.
As the relationship roots grow deeper, the vision will needs to grow bigger.