God Doesn't Send Thoughts & Prayers, He Sends People

It may sound pious to say, “Christ is all I need,” but it isn’t what He had in mind. He thinks we need each other and even says “Bear one another’s burdens, if anyone thinks he is too good for that he is fooling himself, he is really a nobody.”

Every time I speak or write that people need people, I get immediate negative responses because it sounds like I am diminishing God and His power, but He made us so we need the work He does in our lives and nothing takes the place of that, but we also need the work only others can perform. I do not think there are any hard and fast rules here but in the vast majority of cases people discover the work that God does in and for them after they have had a meaningful encounter with a human. We are catalyst that do not do the work but certainly can cause the work to take place. May I offer some examples?

We can dare believe God loves us after being loved by a significant other.
I spent my teen years totally convinced that I was ugly, dumb and unworthy. I did not think my father loved me and certainly did not even begin to think God did. I have often said that discovering the love of God was the great turning point of my life and it was, but before I could think He could love me, a wonderful girl named Barbara took me hook line and sinker. The only girlfriend I ever had made it possible for me to think maybe I was somebody God could love.

We find forgiveness from God after we find it from some significant other.
While teaching a class of young people at a church camp I noticed a young girl on the back row with eyes so full of pain they started haunting me at night. After the final session she stayed behind, and we talked for over an hour. She told me a story of a messed-up life now trying to get straight but fearful that God was going to punish her for her past.

When she finished, I asked her if she felt like I thought less of her because of what she had told me. After thinking that through she finally said, “No I don’t think you do.” I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if God was as nice a guy as I am.” It stunned her so much she could not answer. That night she found me, and I did not recognize her, her eyes had cleared up and her face beamed with a glorious smile.

We feel the presence of God best when it comes in a warm body.
Anyone who has walked through the valley of Grief understands that statement without explanation. There is healing in presence and that is what each of us can carry around and bring to lonely and hurting hearts. I tell folks who wonder how to help grieving people that people in grief need the three H’s. We need to Hang around, Hug them, and Hush, your presence feels like a visit from above.

We matter.
God, and the hurting people He loves, wait to hear us say, “Here am I, send me.”