By Ginny (MAD21)
I suppose it's a little like cheating. It's kind of like getting to see the test before having to take it yourself. You'll have to allow me to indulge in this tiny bit of defiance. I could come up with all kinds of good justifications as to why my posts are published the day after Bridget's carnival goes up on her site. Would you believe it's because the timing works better for my blog? Yes, that actually is the real reason.
Honestly, I've come to enjoy reading others' posts before I have published my own, sometimes even before I have finished writing it. Mostly because it makes me think deeper. Sometimes writing for blogs feels like having to complete an assignment. I really don't want it to turn into that here. I've come to enjoy reading the other posts first because then writing mine feels more like a conversation. It feels more... complete. After reading several other posts in the past day, I also realized that it feels more like... Fellowship.
We are all talking about Fellowship over at Bridget's place this week. Fellow blogger Kely over at Dangerous Breeze wrote about fellowship being the church. Amy Sorrells wrote about companionship and communion. These posts came so close to what I was going to write about myself, but then I read Glynn's post over at Faith, Fiction and Friends that I felt went one step further and really hit the nail on the head for me. In his post, "It's not Coffee Talk," he says that, "...Fellowship may be more akin to what Jesus had with the “good thief” on the cross on Golgotha than anything we define it as today."
I was going to take the route of Fellowship being the gift of something similar to companionship. Like a gathering of people who come together to either worship; accomplish a common task such as building a house for the homeless; help another through a difficult time; or coming together to socialize. But I've come to realize that Glynn and the others are so right in that it means way more than these things.
Most people who know me know that I am not big on social events. Yes, I'm the one who would prefer to have one of two roles at any gathering... give me a job to do, or help me disappear into the wallpaper. I've tried for years to figure out why I have such an aversion, but I have no idea. After reading everyone's posts today, I realized that what I truly long for is the fellowship. Not so much the social, but the real connection that is on a deeper level than casual conversation.
Fellowship isn't about the conversation. Fellowship can occur without words. It isn't about the closeness of other people. It can be shared over distance. It isn't about the party time, or the hoisting of food and drink together. It's about the sharing of time with others have a connection with you.
Notice that a connection is necessary. You can't fellowship without a connection. But, the world's definition of connection is different than ours. We have the ultimate connection with God, and through him, we have a connection with other Christians. It's that deep Christian connection that we miss when we can't find it.
As Christians, it is actually possible for us to fellowship with other Christian people we don't know, because we share Christ as a common bond. 1 John 1:7 tells us that we have fellowship with one another. It's not just something in common to talk about. We should all remember that it is something that we share as part of our lives and our souls. We are all His, and we have a bond that goes beyond friendship.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
This post is a participant in a blog carnival over at Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time.
Be sure to go and check out what everyone else wrote on: Fellowship.