Carina Francke

"Then God said, "Let us make man in our Image, according to our likeness.....in the image of  God He created him; male and female He created them"  Genesis 1:26,27

Adam and Eve were His representatives who journeyed together, fulfilling the task God gave them and although He was ever present, two people still needed each other for the journey.

Leonard Sweet expresses this truth in another way: "The joy is not in the journey; it's in the relationships; it's where I meet you, in Christ. It is not about 'me becoming we', it's about us becoming Him" (11 Indispensable Relationships, p19).

Ecclesiastes 4:9 confirms this truth: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor." The author gives reasons for his statement: if they fall, the one can lift up his companion; one alone stays cold, but two can keep each other warm; one can be overpowered by another, but two can withstand him; and then he caps everything on relationship when he says, "A threefold cord is not easily broken" (v12). Only God's involvement in our relationships strengthens the cord of relationships.

Over and above the mentioned benefits, you and I need people in our lives to challenge our comfort zones. Their challenges enable us to pull down the fences of opinions, traditions, tunnel vision and self-righteousness we have put up, consequently enabling us to think and do new and differently. However, in the process we will learn to know God from a different perspective and discover truth that unbuttons freedom that sets us free.

Every believer, as a matter of fact, every person, need guides, mentors, guards and wise people to assist them on their journeys and to be present when they eventually reach their destinations.

Prayer: Father, make me aware of those people whom You put alongside me to speak into my life and to help me when I struggle to move forward because of the fences I have put up.  Amen