The Three Strands: I Was Never Meant To Be Alone
- Kerry Morris
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
The door of the storage container creaked open reluctantly, revealing a dense expanse of boxes and furniture and random objects large and small - filling every little crevice. My back tightened in anticipation, and a question floated in the warm humid air.
”Am I strong enough for this?”
I sighed a little prayer, “God, help me get this done.” I imagined the strength of Samson, lifting dressers overhead with one arm and slinging couches around like toys.
But instead I received a text from some remarkable friends.
“We are on our way to help.”
The Limits of My Strength
The Apostle Paul once wrote to the church in Rome, “I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us [1].”
There appears to be a tension embedded in that command. We are to evaluate ourselves honestly, not thinking too highly of our abilities. Yet, we are to do that through the lens of faith in a supernatural God who is with us.
In a different letter, Paul wrote, “In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well [2].” In Exodus, we read of a man named Bezalel, of whom God said, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills [3].” The Islamic concept of fitra (the innate nature God places within each person) echoes this theme, teaching that every human is born with natural capacities and inclinations.
But our personal strength has its limits. Ecclesiastes says, “The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives [4].”
However, I do not need to despair when faced with my own weakness. The best of God starts where the rest of me ends. The Sufi tradition in Islam describes weakness as the death of an inflated sense of self, which opens the door to divine ability. The self which dissolves into God does not disappear but returns enlarged. Paul wrote, ”[God] said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ …For when I am weak, then I am strong [5].”
One Organism
Perhaps the humility that comes from acknowledging my weakness is the gateway to sharing the strength of others. Paul instructed the Roman church to “measure yourselves” by faith. He was not just asking each individual what they were capable of. He was challenging a community to consider what they can do together. In his various letters, Paul names over thirty people who cared for him, funded him, housed him, or simply encouraged him.
Paul also highlighted unity despite diversity. “Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad [6].”
The Ubuntu tradition from sub-Saharan Africa states this elegantly, “a person is a person through other persons.” Our strength is not diminished by dependence: it is defined by it [7].
In nature, a grove of Aspen trees is typically one organism sharing a common root system. The Pando grove in Utah appears to be thousands of trees, but is technically a single organism. Sometimes, a group takes on properties that even individuals within it do not possess. Individual neurons in our brain are just bits of tissue, but together they form the mystery of consciousness and cognition.
The Three Fold Cord
Jesus said, “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them [8].” As individuals, we are confined to the limits of our own strength. But as we unite together, God promises to join with us, and we become a different organism, with different and expanded strengths.
Paul invites us to view strength as God sees it, not as a measure of what I can do alone. Strength exists in the place between myself, my community, and my God.
“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 [9].”
I have always read that scripture and thought about myself and two other people. But Jesus said, when two or three are gathered, God is in the midst of them.
When we join with others, God adds a divine strand. And suddenly new things are possible.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Romans 12:3 NLT
[2] Romans 12:6 NLT
[3] Exodus 31:1-5
[4] Ecclesiastes 9:11 NLT
[5] 2 Corinthians 12:5-10 NLT
[6] 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 26 NLT
[7] Science describes such systems as “remixers” - complex systems where interaction of components create properties that no single component exhibits — water is wet, but neither hydrogen nor oxygen is… consciousness emerges from neurons, but no single neutron is conscious…
[8] Matthew 18:20 NLT
[9] Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT
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