Read Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 in your personal Bible or at the link provided.
Review
1. What is encouraged in these verses?
2. Why is community important, according to verse 10?
3. What is the danger of walking alone?
Reflect
Building onto yesterday’s passage, the writer of Ecclesiastes gives another reason to develop intentional community. Not only does it help us succeed, it helps us when we fall. No matter how strong we think we are, falling is inevitable. Things go wrong in life, sometimes because of our own bad decisions or because of situations outside our control. We will all fall, but we don’t have to fall alone.
An important key is knowing when to build community. We can’t wait to build it when we fall. We have to build it before the fall comes. We have to intentionally engage in relationships with God, close friends, the church, and others whom we know and interact with regularly. These groups together form a safety net for when things go wrong.
This type of community requires us to be open-handed. It means allowing ourselves to be fully known, to be real and authentic. Not only getting to know others, but being the type of people who step in to help someone else when they fall. Let’s be intentional and start building a culture of community that helps.
Respond
What small daily choices can you make to build intentional community and help someone who has taken a fall recently? Write down at least two practical things you can do today, and follow through on one of them.