Life Shapes: Triangle

"Jesus went to pray. When morning came he called his disciples to him...a great number of people came to hear him and to be healed."

Luke 6:12-17

The triangle life shape is all about the importance of living balanced lives. In this short passage from Luke Jesus demonstrates to us the three different types of relationship and the necessity of each one. We refer to them as "Up" (our relationship with God), "In" (our relationships with each other) and "Out" (our relationships with people that don't know Jesus yet).

First of all, Jesus prays to Our Heavenly Father, this relationship is so important to cultivate, by worship, prayer and just chatting to God.

Secondly, Jesus gathers his disciples to him, relationships with other followers of Jesus are equally vital. Gathering together to support and love one another should never be underrated, without the encouragement and prayers of others we would struggle. Ephesians 4:16 (NLT) expresses this far better than I can:

"He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love."

Thirdly, the people gathered to Jesus, he taught and healed them, these people did not yet know the love of God. It is our God-given mission to show them that love, if we seclude ourselves from society then how can people meet with Jesus? Relationships with people that don't currently have God in their lives are so important.

Put simply, our relationship with God should feed our relationship with each other, which in turn should help us go out and talk about Jesus to people who don't know him yet.

Without one of these types of relationships the other two would suffer, we need to have all three. For example, if we neglect "Up" then we won't be able to support other followers of Jesus because we'll be missing that supernatural input, our "Out" will also suffer, without fuel our fire for God could die right down and not be visible to others.

Does your life include all of these relationships? Do you give enough time into each of these 3 areas? Just take a moment now to reflect on this and ask God how you can better balance these important aspects of your life.