Walking with the Wise #291: Feeding Off One Another

“One who isolates himself pursues selfish desires;


he rebels against all sound judgment.”

—Proverbs 18:1 (HCSB)

We all need time by ourselves—time to think, process, meditate, and commune with God. Our Lord Jesus found time, in the midst of some of the busiest ministry we could imagine, to steal away and commune with His Father. Time by ourselves is good…to a point. However, there comes a moment when our getting away from others becomes harmful to ourselves and those around us.

God designed us to be together with people. He sets us in families, churches, and other groups of people. However, if we continually pull ourselves away from the greater group and isolate ourselves, we do so to our own detriment as well as to the detriment of others. In doing so, we show that we are selfish. By isolating ourselves, refusing to deal with people or problems, we show that we really don’t care about those to whom we relate. We can even couch this in spiritual language, but we know in our heart of hearts that what we are doing is wrong. We need to be with people.

Perhaps an example my help clarify things. Tim Keller wrote a book entitled The Prodigal God. In it he writes about the group called “The Inklings.” Made up of different writers, they fed off one another, helping one another. Keller writes,

“This is a discussion by C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves where he discussed the nature of friendship. He was one of a small circle of friends who would ‘feed off of' one another, but he said there was something in each of the friends that only one of the others could bring out. When one of them died suddenly, he said, ‘Now that Charles [Williams] is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien's] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.’”

Keller and Lewis both understood that each member of the group helped bring out something different in each other. The church is the same way. We are brought into the body of Christ, and we are members of one another. By being with the greater body, we expose ourselves to many things—conviction of sin, rooting out sinful habits, wrong attitudes, or unpleasant behaviors. But, we also open ourselves up to unparalleled growth as we sharpen one another, work out our salvation, and display the unity that Christ prayed for that can only come from resolving conflict. Removing ourselves then is not just wrong for ourselves—because of what we are losing, but it is also harmful for the greater body because they are not sharpened, nor can they see what God is doing in and through you.

The truth is, we need one another. God placed us in His body for a reason. And while we do need rest and refreshment away from the body for a time, we must come back and join the greater body of Christ in fellowship and sanctification as we seek to sharpen one another so that we might be of further use in the Master’s hand. Amen.