The pain of death was intense and so we took time with her to pray and to let her tell us what happened .I thank God that by the time we were leaving her, she was calm. (email from Pauline)
Her email reminded me of the importance of community, having people around us we can trust, call on in times of need, hear encouraging words from and to share each others burdens. Dictionary.com says community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. With all of our connections on various social-networking sites are we losing the “personal touch”?
If the woman in Luke 8 had met Jesus on Facebook, Twitter etc. she wouldn’t have been able to physically touch His cloak. In that moment she stepped out in faith and went against her culture to reach out and touch a man (especially while bleeding). Don’t get me wrong, God can, and does, work through many types of media (means of communication that reach or influence people widely) but we too are His media through the power of the Holy Spirit. “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). With the Holy Spirit we are to go out and talk with people, build relationships, touch people’s hearts, show them Christ’s love, offer them our joy we have for serving our Creator. That may be next door or around the globe.
Where ever the Lord calls you, remember, “…The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:37-38) We are all God’s workers called to share His gift of salvation. Brother Yun, in his book Living Water (which I highly recommend), says
..when you listen to the Word of God, your heart gets filled up with spiritual food. This is good, but it is there to serve a purpose. That purpose is for you to go and share the food you have with the hungry, so that they too can know Jesus. If you keep God’s blessings to yourself, you will become a bloated and sick Christian.
God’s blessings are many, both spiritual and physical, and we aren’t called to keep them to ourselves. I must challenge myself on this…what am I keeping to myself that I should be sharing?