I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the idea of community.
What does it mean?
How do you find it?
Can it easily happen?
I used to compare it to everything else in life – a lot of hard work. But I’ve come to discover that it looks an awful lot like finding the right person: when you know, you know. Not hard. Easy. Like you found a missing part of yourself.
I know this because I have finally found it.
Community is not something that can be forced. It’s this natural ebb and flow that takes place when you surround yourself with the right people. But in order for this to happen, you need to know what kind of person YOU are and what kinds of relationships YOU need.
I don’t say that for selfish purposes, as if to say – life is all about you – no, I say that to say this: the right community of people will:
- help you grow into the person you were meant to be.
- help you see that a life of purpose ISN’T about living only for yourself.
- help you safely deal with your life challenges so you can IN TURN, help other people deal with theirs.
If the community you surround yourself with – a.k.a, your buddy ol’ pals – isn’t helping you grow, evolve, thrive, learn, and encourage you in the day-to-day aspects of life, then the community itself is stagnate. It is inevitably going backwards, not forwards. Let me put it bluntly, it’s the wrong kind of community.
Genuine community will encourage you to be who you were meant to be.
Genuine community will encourage you to live how you were meant to live.
Genuine community will be the very support you need to get to that place.
They won’t hold you back.
They won’t let you waste your talents.
They won’t be threatened by your gifts, or your passions in life.
They will help you thrive. Period.
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
~Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
