Why needing Jesus looks a lot like needing each other

So, one thing we know is that we need Jesus.  I need Him; you need Him, amen and amen.  

I love it when we can agree!  Moving on...  

This week, I have been very aware of my need, not just for involvement but intervention, really.  Come, Lord Jesus!  "Softly and Tenderly," an old gospel song,  has been on repeat.  (Incidentally, this was penned by an Ohioan - O-H-I-O! - and was often heard on the lips of my precious, faith-filled great-grandma.  Audrey Assad has an incredible version! Google it.)

Back to this week.  Spiritual disciplines have been in place for me to meet with God in the morning:  

• Great coffee
• favorite pen and dull-ish pencil
• two journals these days -one for general spiritual recording; one dedicated to gratitude (so deep is my need to give thanks to the Lord, to remember he is good - received as a gift from a true friend!)
• The Big Ugly (my affectionate and irreverent name for my trusty black, white and orange ESV, packing-taped Bible.  Seriously, who designs a hardback Bible in stark orange, black and white? But it has notes from the last 10 years and I cannot trade up.)
• Kleenex.  Stuff happens when I meet with the Lord!  You, too? 

So, there I've been, meeting with God, knowing my need for Jesus.  Doing the right things.  And yet!  Not knowing abiding peace; struggling to get outside of my own head.  My "wisdom" clamoring for control.

I am writing this on Thursday and twice per month on Thursday morning, I meet with my friend Patti to talk and pray.  Do you even know the battle that exists in my heart and the plethora of excuses that rationalize canceling?  Oh my friends, we have an enemy! But greater is He that lives in me than he that lives in the world (1 John 4:4).  We meet and talk. I get to listen to her life and dump the contents of mine.  

Then comes the power.  This is how I know that needing Jesus looks a lot like needing each other:  I have been praying all week, alone.  While God by his Spirit meets me in private prayer, there is something further, something deeper that happens when I pray with a friend.  Walls crash down.  There is a deep sense of humility in praying with a trusted friend with vulnerability of need.  There is a deep sense of faith being strengthened when my friend prays for me. Today, in keeping in step with the Holy Spirit, she prayed in a way that my spirit desperately needed but could not identify or muster alone.  My fear, anger, pride all laid bare but simultaneously covered by the righteousness of Christ's life. My unsavory stuff was confessed but I didn't feel spiritually naked-  I felt cleansed.  
And because we serve an unbelievably gracious God, I could pray in power for my friend, because sin doesn't have the final say.  We are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:37).  

Final word:  We.  The Trinity is a "we" - one God in three Persons. As believers in Jesus Christ, we- individually- come together to form one family, one body, one Church.  Interconnected.  Like living stones being built up as a spiritual house (1 Peter 2). 

Friends, this is why needing Jesus looks a lot like needing each other.