Social Resilience

People with strong personal relationships are more resilient. Anything worthwhile demands an investment of time, energy and attention. If we neglect social contact, then friendships will wither and atrophy. Hebrews tells us to consider ways to “stir up one another.” When someone puts cream or sugar in coffee or tea and stirs, it permeates the whole drink.

The New Testament lists how to treat “one another.” Here are a few descriptions: “Be in harmony with, greet, welcome, outdo in honor, serve, comfort, do good to, confess your sins to, be gentle, patient and kind, submit, forgive, admonish, encourage, build up, have humility for, show hospitality to, be at peace with, and have fellowship.” Jesus said five times in John 13 and 15 to “love one another.” Love is less about feelings and more about behavior. John says the same thing six times in his epistles. The flip-side states it in a negative way: “Do not…. judge, have lawsuits, compare, bite and devour, provoke, consume, lie to, grumble.”

We are to avoid the bad habit of neglecting to meet together. Instead, we are to be encouraging one another. Matthew Hansen wrote, “The Divine is hidden within community, and this community, when submitted to, shapes us into resilient people we could not have become on our own.”