Staying Connected

"Stay joined to Me and I will stay joined to you..." John 15:4 (CEV)

What lengths do we go to find or make connections?  It is common practice for many to reside on social media sites all day to watch for the activity of their friends, comment on that activity, and make what seems up to the minute reports of their own activity.

It is quietly understood that one may have a thousand plus 'friends' on their site, but actually know one-third of that number, and there is an even smaller percentage of that number that one actually speaks to or sees on a regular basis.  We [yes, even you!] take pride in having all of these 'friends'; it's an esteem builder to have 'followers', people responding to your every move!  Technology has done wonders for finding people we have lost touch with, and the ability to share information in a more expeditious manner.

Technology has also done wonders in a not so positive way as well.  It has come to dissuade people from talking face to face, has reduced our feelings down to emoticons and the description of those feelings to abbreviated words that fit in a space of 140 characters or less.

I find it sad that so many of us have lost the art of simple conversation and believe texting is a sufficient means of communicating one's deepest thoughts and feelings.

Can you imagine your significant other robbing you of the the sweetest opportunity of telling you he/she loves you for the first time, by saying it via text or tweet?

Can you imagine trying to get into heaven, and receiving a text from God saying, 'u suck- u need 2 repent b 4 u can b here!"  Jesus said that He was the true vine and that we are the branches.  If we stay joined to Him, our lives will produce much fruit. Without Jesus, we produce nothing of value and definitely nothing that lasts!  Relationship is key to staying connected! It's about spending time, talking, listening, getting to know Jesus!  How we relate to Jesus, our primary relationship, should be the model on how we relate to and treat others in our relationships.  And last I heard, no one has yet to be able to text Jesus!

This is the world we abide in; a world with ways, some of our own choosing, others not.  But we can control how we stay connected to each other.  So, perhaps to the majority of your 'friends' you can say 'what's up' or 'poke' on FB.  And there may be yet another hierarcical layer that will get bestowed the pleasure of a letter via email, and if you're considered to be all that, you'll get the text from their personal cell phone.

 But my hope is, that you and I will be considered 'so special,' by people we consider 'so special,' and our connections so meaningful, that we would receive telephone calls, lunch dates, dinner dates and any sort of face-to-face interaction to show one another how much we mean to one another!  It's about staying connected!