Dear New McKendree Church Family, 

Other people. Is there anything more annoying than other people? Think about it. Aren’t all your problems, all your frustrations, all the little inconveniences that pepper your day-to-day existence caused by other people? Who needs them? What a breeze your life would be were it not for all those “suck-the-life-right-out-of-you” other people. Right?  

Well, maybe. But before you start your one-man/woman “other people eradication movement,” you might want to consider this: you’re one of them…you’re among the ranks of somebody else’s other people. In fact, we all are. Every one of us is everybody else’s other people. What’s more, we need those pesky other people, and they need us…can’t live with them and can’t live without them. You’re stuck, I’m stuck, we’re all stuck!  

On second thought, perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to be. Let me illustrate: While hiking in the woods, a group of kids came across some railroad tracks. Each of the kids took turns attempting to tightrope-walk the rails, but each eventually lost their balance and tumbled off. Finally, two of the kids, after some whispering and scheming, bet the rest of the group that they could walk the entire length of the track without falling off. Challenged by the others to make good on the wager, the two kids mounted opposite rails, extended their hands to balance each other, and walked the entire section of the track without a hitch.  

Simple as it is, I think those two rail-walking kids shed the light of truth on one of life’s greatest fallacies; that being, the fallacy of the self-made person. There’s no such thing. How can there be? We’re made in God’s image and therefore engineered for a relationship with him and with those other people. In fact, “God so loves other people that he gave his one and only Son, so that all the other people that believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16…slightly paraphrased). 

God made us in such a way that we thrive on partnership, companionship, and fellowship with other people. We do things better, we produce more, and we live happier when we’re serving and being served by other people. Without those other people, can you imagine how off-track your life would be?  

Think about that the next time you run across one of those other people.  

Your brother in Christ, 

Pastor Bryan Wendling