It is good to gather – in 12-Step meetings, church fellowships, and other groups. But is it possible that we have become what Francis Chan calls “professional gatherers”?
Read the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In Life Together, he wrote, “Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community. Such people will only do harm to themselves and to the community. Alone you stood before God when God called you. Alone you had to obey God’s voice. Alone you had to take up your cross, struggle, and pray, and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot avoid yourself, for it is precisely God who has called you out. If you do not want to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and have no part in the community of those who are called.”
Translation: Learn to be alone.
Recovery Step: Do what Jesus did. “After he had dismissed the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone” (Matthew 14:23).
