I ran my first marathon yesterday. Let’s just say that it was the most excruciating and difficult single event I have ever done. Sixteen of the twenty six miles were all uphill. By mile eighteen, my legs were cramping so badly that I could barely walk much less run. By mile twenty I didn’t know if I should cry, scream, lay down and die, or do it all at the same time. By mile twenty two all I could say was “Dear God!” At mile twenty four I kept asking why I was doing this to myself. In the end, I finished. I ran across the finish line with both my kids running the last two-tenths with me. As I sit this morning reflecting on yesterday, I realize that I never could have finished if I hadn’t had help along the way.
All along the route, people from the surrounding area stood, many for hours, encouraging us on. They rang bells, played drums, clapped and cheered. At points I know I looked like death and I felt worse. Yet, they clapped and cheered and told me how great I was doing. Their cheers got me a few more paces down the road, ever closer to the end. With them were some wonderful people who volunteered their time to pace us throughout the race. Many of them ran holding signs for the entire route denoting the pace they were keeping and the time in which you would finish if you followed. Along the way they talked and cheered us on. They told us we could keep going, and if we fell behind another pacer came up and urged us on. Between the two, the crowds on the side of the road and those that ran with us, we finished. I finished. I couldn’t have done it without them.
About midway through the race, I realized that the crowds and pacers were for me what God’s people are on the journey of faith. They were community. God’s people form community. They urge us on. They cheer us when we want to quit. They help us keep putting one foot in front of the other. Without them, we struggle to cross the finish line.
In life, community is perhaps one of the most important aspects of my faith journey. I don’t have just one form of community in my life. At any given time I have at least three. First, I have the community of my fellow believers that make up Browncroft. We pass in the halls and smile. We greet one another and share cups of coffee in the Fellowship Hall. We worship together. I also have the community that is my community group. We meet weekly in our homes. We pray for one another. We laugh. We cry. We seek to apply what we are learning from God so that we look more like Christ. Finally, I have my soul friend. My soul friend is my community of one, the person with whom I am the most authentic and transparent. My soul friend is the person who helps me live in the tensions of life and faith. These are the forms of community that I have at any given time. I find that I need all of them. I need the larger community as they remind me that I am part of something bigger than myself, part of a Kingdom movement. I need those with whom I meet weekly for they keep me honest with myself and with God. They remind me that I am not alone. I need my community of one for here I am reminded that slogging through the journey of faith is no reason to give up but it is in the slogging that God does His greatest work.
I am thankful for community. I am the person I am and am becoming the person God desires me to be in large part because of them. What about you? What role is community playing in your life? In what way is it transforming you? Encouraging you? Urging you forward on the journey of faith?
A fellow traveler,
Blake
Spiritual Formation Pastor