Fellowship

God is good. Those who agree, say Amen please.
Timing's always perfect and it's usually nothing more nor less.
Just when I WAS wondering - What exactly is fellowship all about? The book that I am basing my 40days prayer on led me to this topic "Experiencing life together"

Life is meant to be shared and God intends for us to experience life together. The bible calls it FELLOWSHIP. Real fellowship is more than showing up at services. It's experiencing life together (At this first opening statement, I went "Ah huh.. Not REALLY easy...")

Real Fellowship means
1) People experience authenticity
Genuine heart to heart sharing. Sharing of hurts. Revealing of feelngs. Confessing of failures. Disclosing of doubts. Asking for help and prayer.
In short, honest and humble. No pretending or superficial politeness.
No wonder God tells us to confess our sins to one another and pray for each other so that we can be healed.

2) People experience mutuality
The art of giving and receiving.
This brought me to my area of work.
Many times, I realised that we are diagnostic.
When someone comes with a problem, we try to come up with a solution and diagnose the condition.
Not realizing that - THAT diagnostic procedure is our agenda. Not the person's agenda.
When I do that, I realised that I am forcing that person to go by my agenda. Hmmmm....
Sometimes, perhaps, I fall into the category where I have already painted a picture and when someone come and add a different colour to the painting, I get frustrated.
But hey... mutual respect = give & take.

3) People experience sympathy
Sympathy is not giving advice or offering quick diagnostic help. Sympathy is entering in and sharing the pain of others. Sympathy says "I understand what you are going through and what you feel is neither strange or crazy."
Simply means meeting the needs to be understood and the need to have the feelings validated.

I am super thankful for my friends who just hear me ramble. They really helped me to know that (1) I understand you are going through a bad time. (2) I acknowledge your feelings

4) People experience mercy
Fellowship is a place of grace. Mistakes are not rubbed in but rubbed out.
God is mercy ain't He?

Towards the end, I told myself - If I wanna authentic fellowship, then let me learn how to be a friend first before expecting anyone to be. Sometimes, I think I struggle over (1). It's REALLY hard to confess failures, share hurts, etc. Isn't it? *SMILE*