If you can’t get along with others, you can’t get along in the world. This is an unalterable reality. Success in any sphere of life requires interacting successfully with other people. Many multi-talented people have failed to achieve their goals or their potential because they simply stunk at connecting with others. As much as we’d like to fantasize that we can get our way if people would just stay out of our way, there’s no way this is going to happen.
This is especially true when considering our life under God. We cannot answer “How am I doing in my religion?” without answering “How am I doing in my relationships?” Jesus demonstrates the critical nature of human connections by making it one of the three main topics in his Sermon on the Mount. He implies that on the dashboard of human life, the quality of our relationships is one of three gauges we are to watch. Spiritual health and vitality is measured by this gauge. The journey to the top of his Mount is not a solo climb. It requires contact and communication with others.
James Bryan Smith writes that our interactions with humans are the frontline of the spiritual life: “Our daily encounters with others are the arenas in which our relationship with God becomes incarnate.”[i] Relationships, from strangers to soul-mates, are where we put the “walk” into our “talk.” The ultimate test of the authenticity of your faith is how you act toward the next person you see: the busy mail carrier at your mailbox, the distracted teen taking your order at the drive through, the cranky coworker in the cubicle next to yours, or the weary woman who greets you at day’s end.
[image]
[i] James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (IVP, 2010), 19.
