Community and Store Bought Shiny Stuff

The great thing about rocks is that they are all over the place.  This makes having a rock collection fairly easy, but rock collecting professionals know that in order to have a good rock collection, you need some shiny stuff.  Shiny rocks are not found on the side of the road unfortunately.  The are found in caves and quarries and other dangerous places.  They're also found in souvenir shops in Arizona.

The shiny stuff in my rock collection mostly came from a cart shaped like a covered wagon from various stores in semi-exotic locales.  However, these shiny rocks made me feel pretty good; they made me feel like a true blue collector.  Since you can't really feel any pride from store bought shiny stuff, I always bought more.  In fact, rocks were one of my favorite things to buy.  In the end though, while these rocks look good in your rock box, they aren't really yours.

This can not be found in caves; only in
small satchel looking bags with tiny drawstrings. 

If there is a God and He is giving us life that is too abundant for just ourselves, what does that mean for us?  It means that Christianity must be based around interaction with others.

When we are fully taken care of, there is no longer a need to search for life.  We are in fact given the life that we've always been searching for.  So then, where do we turn our attention when we turn away from ourselves?  There can only be two answers; God and other people.  

Relationship with God is God moving us and us moving God.  This is where we receive the life that allows us the freedom from the rat race of survival.  With God, we survive, we thrive, we win.  And more.  Relationship with others is where we turn next.  Since we no longer have a need to find life for ourselves, we seek out those who are in death and bring the life to them.

The crazy part is that we are all in that death, Christians or otherwise.  This is why we need community.  We receive life, offer it to those who need it, and have it returned to us when we squander it.  This process occurs over, and over, and over.  This is what Christian community looks like.  It's the shiny stuff.  And it is only found in dangerous places, because the hearts of people are wrought with peril.

The temptation is to seek out life from a source without being in community with it.  But store bought salvation is only good for looking nice in your box.  It isn't really yours.  Real life comes from the caves and quarries and other dangerous places of life.  If you stay away from danger, the shiny stuff you'll have will be as fake as the rest of you.  And you'll never have enough.