Connection

Connection. It can be easily taken for granted until you are disconnected.

Cue 2020. Covid-19; working and learning from home with laggy (or no) wi-fi; storm-damage blackouts; enforced lockdowns (still) preventing us from being with family, friends and workmates. This year has been a year like no other!

For introverts who usually appreciate a little social distancing every now and then, this season of sustained social separation is wearing pretty thin. How much more so for the extroverts amongst us who draw energy from being with others? One of the most significant aspects this time has highlighted is our inherent need for connection, not surprising really when you consider that we are made to be connected.

When God reflected on His handiwork at the end of each day of creation (a model we are wise to follow), He proclaimed, ‘It is good’. How significant it is then, that after creating and evaluating mankind He says it is not good that we should be alone (Genesis 2: 18). It strikes me that God, in His infinite wisdom, could have made us without the need for others. In His divine design brief, however, He says, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’ (Gen. 1: 26), and chooses to make us social beings reflective of the trinity. We are created for community: with God; with others.

Not only has the year 2020 served to show us how great our need for connection with each other, it has also provided us each with an invaluable personal insight into what separation is like, and how detrimental it can be. Our fundamental human need to interact socially is the reason why solitary confinement is used and feared as a punishment in prisons. Whilst not the same extreme, there’s no doubt most locked-down Melburnians can now relate to a similar sense of isolation from loved-ones.  How much greater and more tragic would be eternal separation from not only family and friends, but from the love of God Himself!

The gospel–God’s Good News–proclaims that whilst once we were disconnected from God; separated because of sin, God’s love for us was so great that Jesus chose separation from God the Father and the isolation of the cross to forgive our sins and give us the hope of eternal life in His presence. Like the apostle Paul in Romans 8: 35-39, when we then choose to accept God’s free gift of unfailing love we can say with assurance and 2020 hindsight, that, despite pandemics, lock-downs, blackouts and dodgy internet, nothing can separate us from the love of God.