Where Are You At?

“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together,” 1 Corinthians 12:26.

All.  Here it is again.  What happens to one member affects all.  

Do we have time for all?  How long will the suffering and rejoicing last?  Is it worth our investment?

You are the one sitting in ashes or dancing to a tune.  You need and want someone to join you.  You can’t process your grief or express your thanksgiving until someone else is here.  Who will listen to you?  

But no one else is here.  Since there is not another earthen soul who understands your suffering or shares your rejoicing, they have not bothered to stop.  Stop by.  Sit.  Listen.  Wait for sympathy and join you.  The pain is really only yours.  Who has felt it?  The joy relies upon what you alone have found.  Who can see?  

“We played the flute for you and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn,” Matthew 11:17.  All.  They were not all together.  

To be all together does not require a feeling or perfect vision.  I do not need to understand your pain or share the complete enrapture of your joy.  Your pains and joys do not mean the very same thing to me.  To be all together, I must simply be with you.  You are the subject.  I am here where you are at.  When you mourn, I cover in ashes.  When you rejoice, I join your dance.  They are your mourning and your dancing.  I engage them with you.

Where you are at is where I am at and where I am at is where you are at.  And Jesus prayed, “All mine are yours, and your are mine… .just as you Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us… .I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one,” John 17.  All together.  With.

Where are you at?  Where you sing, I will sing.  Where you mourn, I will mourn.  Where you dance, I will dance.  Where you suffer, I will suffer.  All suffer.  All rejoice.  Where are you at?  Here I will make my investment.  Selah.