Today’s devotional touches on probably the second ‘weakest’ area of my personal spiritual life - close personal friendships. If prayer is my weakest area, this is a close second. I am a person who enjoys alone time by my nature, but I also have a level of connection that I need and actually crave, but it is typically easy for me to ignore it. And, it is easy for me to treat my time of connection with others as a time for my own development, which is true, but it is also me giving to others...which means I am being selfish with my time, in a way.
The passage for today comes from the introductory section of Romans, where Paul is getting the letter to the church in Rome kicked off, and it reads:
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.—Romans 1:11-12
As strong as Paul was in his faith, and as well-versed as he was in Jewish Law and in the teachings of Jesus, he was equally as well-centered on personal relationships. He valued them, as is evidenced by his writings. He leveraged them to make himself better, but also to sharpen others, and to use what he had to serve others.
Today, I am going to schedule some time with a couple of old friends that I haven’t seen in a while, to reconnect, and to re-establish some friendships that are important to me, that are developmental to me, and that I actually do crave deep down. Today is a great reminder that we are made for community...and I can’t go on cutting myself short in this area of my spiritual development.
