Abraham's Descendant: Friendship And Fellowship: Not Just Mere Footnotes (1)

"AN INTROVERT'S STATUS"

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Being an introvert, I fully understand that lack of initiative of meeting new people and befriending others. That is a scary dimension for introverts like me. It's a step into another realm outside ourselves; that's something hideous for introverts like myself. And through this, while pondering this, I somehow came to understanding that God has designed man for friendship and fellowship. God has wired into us the need to socialize so that we will not implode. So that we can experience God through other people. We could look into another person's eye and say that God indeed has a marvelous creation.

Dealing with my introvert nature (I haven't been with a Psychologist EVER), words that I learned from my Psychology class, I have had to work out my weaknesses in my favor. For instance, my pondering, brooding side I could use in concentrating on reading the Holy Scriptures and on prayer. My being slow in speech meant I could listen more and process ideas in my head enabling me to be careful in voicing out judgments. Now this isn't to say that extroverts aren't good listeners, many of them are. I'm just speaking about my own way of dealing with my nature according to the gift God has given me and that is LIFE.

Surviving my uber-shyness, I started appreciating my weaknesses brought about by my nature. I had to take baby steps. Things that paid off.

I realized that to avoid being "stagnant" I had to face the fact that I need people around me with whom I could confide everything that was within me; all of who I am. This meant I have to take off that false armor of security (introvert nature may trigger insecurity) and be vulnerable to what other people might think or say of me. THIS EXPERIENCE has been more pronounced than any other experience in my teaching profession.

The teaching profession as everyone knows is the kind of profession that requires a person to deal with other people ON A DAILY BASIS. So I had to rub it to my face and shrug off whatever fear I had within me.

Setting aside fear while maintaining my pondering and brooding self, I learned that people would be more than willing to share their beliefs and ideas whenever needed to empower another person, to give assurance or comfort. This is really a reflection of what Bible says about relationships.

As a bearer of God's image, a man is not just a man for himself. In fact The Bible reflects that a man IS NOT FOR himself-- he is FOR THE OTHERS. And since a man is an iconography of God's image, a fellow man is his mirror of that Imago Dei.

We are to bear each other-- whatever nature we have-- because God has imprinted on us His image, signed, sealed, delivered by His Son, so that we can sharpen one another in good will and faith.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” CS LEWIS

Abraham's Descendant

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Friendship And Fellowship: Not Just Mere Footnotes (1)

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