(Click here for a video of John reading today’s Catch.)

Diverse group of casual people with arms around each other.

I woke up this morning feeling a really strong connection to my bed. We had a hold on each other that didn’t want to let go. My bed really wanted me, and I must say it was nice to be so desired, but God and you want me too, and that’s not a statement of arrogance. I’m not talking about the fact that you couldn’t wait to read my Catch this morning. I’m talking about the fact that we are connected far more than we realize. We are all a part of each other. Remember the Bible calls us a “body.” Someone is an eye, someone is a foot, someone else is a little finger, but we are all connected and we all need each other. The same blood flows through us all. When we move, we move together. Where I go, you go too. Where you go, you bring me.

If this sounds a little strange to you, or somewhat far-fetched or impossible, just listen to the words of Jesus when He was praying for His disciples: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

That is a presentation of you and me and God in a very tight connection. We are so wound up in each other as to be one. What you do affects me; what I do affects you. No one is an island. Wake up and engage because that’s where you are alive. We are alive in each other in the Lord.

Now, I could have stayed connected to God in bed, but only in a limited way, because a large part of my connection to God involves my connection to the people and the world around me. I can only know so much of God lying in bed. I can know so much more when I am in touch with you.

I know we’ve mostly thought this was just metaphorical — this talk about being one, and about being the body of Christ — but I think it’s much more than that. I think it’s real. I think we are inter-connected in ways we don’t even realize. I also think you can go through life believing you are all alone, or you can go through life believing you are a part of everyone, and you will pretty much set your reality based on what you believe.

Wake up. Come out of yourself. Connect and be connected.

“Oh you of little faith,” Jesus used to say about His disciples. Your world is the size of your faith. When Jesus was with them, their world was small. They moved about in familiar places struggling to believe that this man/God who was walking alongside them was really who He said He was. When He left, and left His Holy Spirit with them, their world got much, much bigger. Their world grew to the size of their faith and how far their feet would take them. Because they were the body of Christ. They healed people, drove out demons, spoke boldly, and went anywhere, because they were connected to a big God.

That’s the way it is for you and me, today.