Doing life together

We had this discussion the other day in our marriage small group about friendships and “doing life” with your friends, and what that even means. I mentioned a couple of months ago I came across a picture or video, probably on TikTok, of a friend group on vacation with the caption “doing life together.”  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to have friends you do fun things with, go on vacation, take a couples trip, go to sport events with….all the fun things.

But what about the not so fun things…..have you ever had to “do life” with people through sickness, divorce, struggle, loss, grief, change?

I got pretty heated during this discussion, not at the points people were trying to make, but at the fact that actually “doing life” with people isn’t a filtered instagram photo.

Doing life with people is sitting in the waiting room of a hospital not knowing what’s going to happen. Doing life with people is asking them to get down on their knees and pray harder than they have ever prayed. Doing life with people is giving them a card with cash to help lessen the burden.

Doing life with people exposes your weaknesses. It’s not always pretty and it’s not always fun.

This last year God has taught me a lot about “doing life” with people. He has taught me a lot about relying on others, and asking for help….not things I like to do. God has humbled me in more ways than one.

But isn’t this what God wants for us. He wants us to gather and have community with each other. He wants us to bear each other’s burdens. God knows we are going to have trials and tribulations in this life. He tells us to have faith in him and to rely on him but He also tells us in Galatians 6:2 to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” God tells us to love one another….”For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14)

The people that we “do life” with have beared our burdens, they have loved us, they have walked with us, they have sat in a hospital waiting room staring at a peacock painting in silence just to be there, they have cried with us, they have prayed for us, they have laughed with us, they have served us, they have carried us.

They have been the hands and feet of Jesus.

There’s a reason God puts people in your life. Don’t devalue what it really means to “do life” with your people.

🖤