We all need somebody to lean on
A few weeks ago, our mission pastor’s wife, Heidi, taught our Sunday school class. We’ve been studying the book of Acts for the past two years, and the passage Heidi spoke on was from Acts chapter 18, where Luke mentions Priscilla and Aquila. Heidi spoke about how even the great Apostle Paul didn’t go it alone, but had other believers who worked with him in spreading the gospel and teaching the word of God. The point was that we need other believers around us.
That same Sunday night, we had a “Connect with God” worship and prayer service. One of the older choruses we sang simply goes:
He’s all I need
He’s all I need
Jesus is all I need
Then, on Wednesday night of that same week, the class I’m part of was discussing the topic of cultivating community and friendships, using David and Jonathan as a biblical example.
So which is it? Do we need other followers of Christ in our lives, or do we only need Jesus? How do these two things fit together, if they even do?
Before I get to how this resolves, let me go on a little digression regarding my own life experience.
I was always the top performer academically in school.
I was bitten by the computer bug (the good kind, not the kind that causes glitches and errors) in sixth grade, and taught myself BASIC programming at age 11. By the time I got to take a computer class in high school, I had already been coding for five years. Occasionally the teacher would ask me to help other students who were having difficulty debugging their programs, because of my prior experience.
I rarely if ever had to ask my classmates for help. On the contrary, I was the one my classmates came to for help understanding the subject matter if what the teacher said didn’t land with them. About the only time I asked for help was if I missed a day due to illness and needed someone to fill me in on the material.
Once I was out of elementary school, I never even really had to ask my parents for help with homework, other than having my mom help me if the assignment called for the work to be typed before turning it in. I would write the entire paper out longhand, and then my mother (who had decades of office experience) would type it for me. But then when we got a word processing program and dot matrix printer for my Radio Shack computer, I started typing my own papers.
When you’ve been relatively independent, not ever really needing other people’s help to get by, it can become very easy to close yourself off. After months and years of not having to ask others for help or feeling dependent on others, then when you do need help or input from someone else, it’s hard to reach out and ask for assistance, because (1) you don’t want to give up the image of a strong, independent person and (2) you don’t have an established network of mutual support you can reach out to.
When you spend long enough feeling like you don’t need anyone else, you discover that you don’t have anyone else.
That’s not a good place to be.
And while it is true that “When Jesus is all you have, you’ll find that Jesus is all you need,” it can be dangerous to think that you don’t need other Christians.
While everything we need truly is found in Jesus, Jesus often gives us what we need through others who are following Him. Jesus shows himself to us through His body—the Church—fellow pilgrims on the road to the Celestial City.
So while that worship chorus from that Sunday night is relevant and can even be a source of strength and comfort in times of trouble, I think there are a couple of other songs we should keep in mind to stay in balance.