We Go TogetherChikamu

Show Up

Showing up is what turns people you know into your people. People who you’ve seen at their best and worst and who you can invite in even when you, your house, or your world is a wreck. This relationship will require risk, but we have to resist insecurity and embrace awkwardness because connection requires vulnerability.

Friendship matters to God. When God created the world, God said that everything was good. But once he created Adam, something was not good. It was not good that man was alone (Genesis 2:18). Although humankind’s deepest problem is sin, our first problem was aloneness.

Then throughout the Bible, we read of our fracturing and God restoring our relationship with Him and with each other.

• Enoch and Noah “walked with God” — a Hebrew expression of friendship.
• Abraham was called “a friend of God.”
• Moses spoke with God “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”
• Jesus came to lay down his life for our sins because “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

In the story we are studying this week, we see a man who had no choice but to accept help. In the culture in which he lived, being sick meant he couldn’t work, couldn’t support himself, couldn’t care for himself, or be an active part of his family - if he had one. And we see four men who were determined to get their friend to Jesus. The Bible doesn’t tell us how they became friends - it doesn’t matter. The fact is, they were committed to this friendship. We also don’t know why they were so determined - maybe they had been healed themselves by Jesus, maybe they had heard what Jesus had done for others, or maybe they were just tired of seeing their friend suffer. Whatever their reason, they showed up in a big way for their friend, and nothing would stop them. Not fatigue - they had to have been worn out from carrying him. Not the house - it slowed them down a little, but it didn’t stop them. Not the people between them and Jesus. How often have we let obstacles keep us from showing up for others? Or, worse yet, how often have we been the obstacle that kept someone from getting what they need?

Consider This…

How can you begin connecting with others and helping them connect to what they need?

What obstacles have kept you from showing up for others in the past?

Together…

We’ll show up for each other in the ways we need and ask if we don’t know how. We’ll get creative in connecting with people and be the kind of women who shout our friend’s name in a room full of opportunities. No jealousy or competition here. Instead, we’ll be midwives for each other, coming around to help birth each other’s dreams and bring one another’s unique offerings into the world. Building the life you want takes a village. May it begin with being courageous, bold, and going all-in on friendship.