Becoming Part of the Community

I have been beyond blessed to be a part of the Shelby Park community. The more I am here the more people I meet and the more my relationships with those individuals grow. I am excited to see how these relationships grow and what they will looks like by the end of this year....shoot by the end of this month! God has been so gracious in what He has already shown me. I have now completed two books of the Bible completely (Genesis and Job). It has not been easy to keep up with the reading each day but I have already seen my desire and my excitement for the readings increase. I pray and ask that this year through the Bible reading would not just become me reading through as though it were just another book but that I would continue to meditate on what I read and dig deeper, ask questions, and seek answers. I pray that through this I will not only gain wisdom but will be able to glorify God more fully and more intentionally with everything that I do! Lord, do with me what you will. To God be the Glory!

Speaking of Job and kind of changing the depth of this post...I have found that community is important. Job had community, even through his suffering. It may not be the kind of community we think about or even want to have around in a time of suffering but it's the kind we need...well, kind of. Job's friends came and sat in silence with him in his suffering for the first little while they were there.

11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Job's friends also called him out on his sin. Now, they were not right about Job's sin but we need friends and Christian community that will hold us accountable to our sin and will encourage us to fight that sin, seeking to glorify God and not ourselves. I have recently joined a community group that meets within the neighborhood and I can say that it has already been such a blessing to be able to meet with fellow Christians, encourage one another, lovingly call out each others sin, and just live life together. For those of you that are not familiar with the term "community group" it is a group of people, from the same community, who get together at least once a week, and dive a little deeper into the Gospel that was preached on during the previous Sunday's sermon, bring forth sin, and encourage each other to seek God's face and live to glorify Him. For this I am extremely thankful!