The Rebel’s Guide – Be An Imperfect Friend - Monday
Today’s Verse
Ecclesiastes 4:12
“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” (NLT)
Have you ever heard the phrase “the garage door is the modern drawbridge”?
It’s a term coined by social observers to describe a shift in American life in the 1990s. Back then, people increasingly turned their homes into places of retreat from the world, a trend dubbed “cocooning.” The home became like a medieval castle: you’d lower the drawbridge (the garage door), go to work, come home, raise the bridge, and settle in behind the proverbial moat. Evenings became routines of watching TV, reading, and then going to bed—only to repeat it all the next day.
This cocooning had a side effect though: people became strangers to each other. They never let anyone get close enough. Only the special few got invited across the drawbridge. Everyone else was, “Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Sorry, I don’t have time to talk, gotta run. Bye.”
Now, in 2024, we’re three decades into this experiment. Plus we’ve added more people working from home, more streaming services than you can count, and numerous food delivery services—you hardly have to leave for anything.
Our do-it-yourself, self-help, I-can-make-it-on-my-own culture of North America has so thoroughly saturated our imaginations that this seems very normal. But God’s design for our lives reveals a different strategy. Our series, The Rebel’s Guide, is all about living in a different way. As Jon said on Sunday, “If we are going to rebel, we need to rebel against the current individualist mindset.”
The writer of Ecclesiastes emphasizes this because, in life, trouble will come. There will be times we trip up, lose our way, or feel completely overwhelmed. And in those moments, having someone to help us up can be the difference between rising again and staying down.
Think of the times you’ve been there to support a friend. There’s a tangible joy in getting to lend a hand, give advice, or simply listen. It’s in these exchanges that we experience the picture described in Ecclesiastes 4—a shared load, a mutual benefit, and the beauty of friendship.
That’s what we’ll explore each day this week. We are made for friendship and the Christian life was never intended to be a solo journey.
REFLECTION
Take a few minutes to re-read Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Jot down each benefit of friendship that stands out to you. Then, think of specific examples from your life where you’ve seen these in action. As you go, consider the ways this challenges the individualistic “do-it-alone” mindset we often see in our culture.