We Need One Another

At the end of every podcast, we like to ask our guests to share what God has been teaching them in this season of life. This week’s guest is Jay Stringer, a licensed mental health counselor, ordained minister, and nationally requested speaker on the subject of unwanted sexual behavior.

Romans 2:4

Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Two things come to mind. The first is that, you know, Romans 2:4 is that do you not know that is the kindness of God that leads to change. And so, I mean, just as I look at a lot of things in my life that need to change, one of the ways that I normally default to is just kind of contempt. Right. 

I hate myself. And that's why I go for a longer run. I hate that I have historically had sexual brokenness. So I'm just going to kind of hate myself and will myself to change. And it just doesn't work. And I think part of what that passage is inviting me to do is to embrace the beatitudes, like blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

So I think that that's part of what I'm experiencing in the season is just the kindness of God that's really willing me toward a very different type of change than I would have originally wanted early in my adult life. And so I think that's a lot of what I've been thinking about.

Then, one of the things that I heard a famous apologist say recently is that we need “more than Jesus.” But how many sermons do we hear, how many songs do we sing that actually say the exact opposite of that? And what he says is that there are 59 “one another” statements in the New Testament. So it's love one another, care for one another, share your burdens with one another, don't pass judgment on one another. And so I've been really struck by that, especially as entrepreneurs, how much we try to do on our own in this kind of counterintuitive approach of what does it mean to have “one another’s” in our life as we journey through difficult moments in our marriages or in our businesses. And I think also the successes. 

One of the things that I often hear from executives who are clients of mine is that they don't really even have many people to share some of the highlights of their life with. So they made X amount of money and most of their friends are completely jealous of them. Right. So I think it's just that in our brokenness and in our celebration, we need one another. So I think those would be the two things, the kindness of God and just the sweetness of what it means to have one another in our lives.