Linked Together

"I am bound by the chain of witnesses who throughout the centuries gave their lives for Jesus Christ. I am a link in this chain. I will not break it." Such were the words of a Christian prisoner in Cuba upon being asked to sign charges against fellow Christians that would lead to their arrest (for more information on this story, you can read the book titled Jesus Freaks Volume 1 by dc Talk & The Voice of the Martyrs).

This past weekend, I was at a retreat with many other believers and had the privilege of helping with the children. One of the stories that were told was the one summarized above. Upon hearing the story, the children were told to participate in making a paper chain. They were asked to think of someone who they thought had given his/her life for Christ. Not necessarily those who had died, but those who lived for Christ. They wrote names such as Nate Saint, Aaron (in the Bible), Robert Thomas, and Ruth (in the Bible). Then they were told to choose someone of the same criteria whom they knew personally, and write his or her name on a strip of paper. Several of them wrote "Daddy" or "Mommy," while others wrote the names of other people in our community. Then each child wrote their own name on a strip of paper of a different color. Each group linked their strips together to make paper chains.

After she had dismissed all of the children, the leader realized that because there had been three groups, she now had three separate chains. In fact they looked very pitiful and something like this:

(photo taken from http://iccf.freeforums.org)

The next day, she was trying to figure out how she was going to connect them. Soon, however, the children arrived and she pushed the matter aside to deal with at a later time. The session that morning was about forgiveness. At the end of the session, the leader told all of the children to pray and ask God to help them forgive those who had hurt them or those who simply annoyed them.

During the silent time of prayer, when only the music was playing, one of the kids quietly got up and started adding more names to the chains. The names were those of Christians she had forgiven. Her name was now linked to theirs, just as it was to those she had written during the previous sessions. Before long, almost all of the kids were adding names of people they'd forgiven onto the chains. You would not believe how many more links were added and how much longer those chains became. Soon the three separate chains merged into one through forgiveness and healing.

We've all heard the saying that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest point. But more often than not, I think the chain of believers in Christ has more than one weak link. We're too busy to spend time with our fellow Christians; our relationships with other members of the Body of Christ are in a bad state; sometimes we even think that we are "God's gift" and that we don't need anybody else. We often get into the mindset that our attitude only affects us.

We couldn't be more wrong. If I have a problem with somebody and don't resolve it, that relationship affects our entire community. People know when there's a problem. They may not know just what the problem is, but they can tell when something just isn't the way it should be. We as Christians are all linked on the same chain, and when there is break to that chain due problems concerning the members of that chain, the other links can sense it. The chain becomes weaker. The weaker it becomes, the easier it is for it to break again. Before long, we have a mess on our hands where nobody is communicating well, people are lonely, people are getting hurt, and the only thing the unbelieving world can see is bitterness and anger. What kind of a witness is that?

Being part of the Body of Christ, and specifically part of the community I'm in at moment, is one of the greatest blessings I've ever known. But we're far from perfect. We have to go through the process of forgiveness and healing just like everybody else does.

We need to be purposeful in our relationships with other believers. As I said before, we may not know what exactly people may be going through. I found out many things about people at this retreat that I had no clue about. If I had been purposeful in those relationships beforehand, I probably would have found out a lot of those things prior to the retreat. It's not always easy to be purposeful; it's not always convenient. But regardless of whether or not it's easy or convenient, it is something the Body of Christ needs desperately. We need to strengthen those chains that bind us to one another.

(photo taken from http://folkonfolks.com)