God Speaking

“Two are better than one for they have a good return for their work. If one falls down the other can help him up.”

(Ecclesiastes 4: 9)

During the ugly covid virus racing through the world the rallying cry here in Canada was “We are in this together”. I think we all learnt a lot about looking out for others especially the old and the shut-in, but life is returning to normal, or somewhat, but I was reading a very interesting article about how loneliness was escalating everywhere. I live in a city and my neighborhood is made up of many high buildings where hundreds of people live in apartments. Nothing like when I was a child where we all knew our neighbors and my mother would pop in to see how others were getting on and thought nothing of hearing a knock on the door and seeing a friend wanting to borrow a cup of sugar she needed and had run out of it. 

The other troubling group experiencing loneliness was young people. Teenagers. This surprised me until I read further to see that the cause was often the current use of cell phones and the internet to keep in touch. The writer explained that it was very hard to share hurts or deep feelings with others in these abbreviated messages and if they ever did social media would broadcast it and they would be mocked and bullied.  

Proverbs reminds us of the importance of having that true friend to support and love us whatever we are going through. 

“A friend loves at all times…” (Proverbs 17: 17)

I was very interested when my friend told me about her granddaughter’s Sunday school teacher. She was aware of this problem and as her class was Pre-Teen group, she had a lesson on true friendship and asked each one of them to reach out in person to somebody who needed a friend and asked them if they were willing to share with the class next week. When my friend was telling me this story I was impressed with the teacher, but when I heard the granddaughter’s reply I was very impressed with her. She told her grandmother that she had done this and when she ended her story the teacher was very pleased and handed her a candy. The little girl’s reply amazed me, and I thought all of us adults should follow her example. This is what she said. 

No, I don’t need candy to do good.

I thought this was a wakeup call for all of us. Sometimes we see doing good for others is a great way to earn praise from fellow believers, like candy, but the young girl’s reply is how we should look at following the Lord’s commands, it is him we are pleasing and the warmth that we feel is his approving love sweeping over us. 

“A new command I give you. Love one another, as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men shall know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13: 34 – 35)