Why No Man is an Island // A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, Part 1

<p>In the busy world in which we live, we make all sorts of excuses for not connecting with friends. Too busy, too tired, too many hurts from the past … let’s be honest, too selfish. But being alone is hard work because, as it turns out, we were never made to be alone.</p> <p> </p> <h3><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>We’re Created for Community</strong></span></h3> <p>It’s always exciting to kick off a new series of messages and starting today we are going to be talking about friendship. That’s why I have called this series “A Friend In Need is a Friend Indeed.” It’s a saying that most of us have heard of many times before and it’s well … it’s so true. There are some people who, right now, who are living their lives without a friend in the world – or so it seems to them right now. Sometimes that happens because we isolate ourselves and sometimes it happens, well, for a whole bunch of reasons that are completely outside our control. And sometimes we are just not sure why it’s happening but we feel so desperately alone.</p> <p>Well, over the next few weeks we are going to explore this whole thing about friendship, because whether we realise it or not, we are made to have friends. We are made to be a part of a community; part of a family and we are made to connect with people who are our friends. And there is a reason for that. It’s not just a quirk of fate as the primeval slime evolved over eons to become thee and me. No, that’s just stretching the imagination a bit too far.</p> <p>The reason we are made to connect with other people is that that is exactly what God is like and you and I – the thing that makes us different from any other creature or species alive is this: you and I are made in the image of God. And that as it turns out, is the whole reason that we are meant to be in close relationship, at least with a few other people.</p> <p>It has always blown me away how the first few words of the first verse of the first Book of the Bible must have puzzled people way back when it was written. Genesis chapt