I had the biggest case of Senioritis my Senior year of High School. Senioritis if you are lucky hits you about two months before graduation. I was not so lucky. Mine hit about two weeks before my 18th birthday when I started to see my life sans parents, sans rules, sans school. Only my 18th birthday was in December, and I did not graduate until June. Too bad for me. During this period of Senioritis, I found myself questioning my father’s ability to govern our home, my presence in the first and last periods of school each day, and my curfew. Because, really, I was almost 18, and I was practically an adult—not so much.

In reality, what Senioritis proved to me was that I desperately needed the guidance of my father and mother even more. The absence of my car for two weeks proved to me the importance of showing up on time at curfew. And, the night I told my father that I could have any roommate, female or male, in college I saw fit clearly demonstrated the importance of my father’s roof over my head and his blessing as I went off to college. Needless to say, that year my learning curve and my grasp of common sense improved dramatically.

The Lone Ranger Christian is one who sometimes feels the same sense of false independence that a high school senior with Senioritis feels. The LRC thinks that they can manage without church, without community, without other Christians to connect with. I know because at times in my life I have felt the same way.

Our Father designed us to be a community. To worship and pray with like-minded believers who would hold us accountable, spur us on to good works, and support us when the trials and tribulations come. When my oldest son was hospitalized this past November, this was the biggest trial my family had ever faced. I thank God we did not face it alone. In the midst of our darkest hour, there were friends, family members, believers that came along side us to carry some of that dreadful load. This is part of the reason we cannot be LRC. Had we been, we may have never known the love of Christ through so many.

Like my young 17-year-old self, I sometimes fall prey to the enemy’s trap of being fiercely independent. I am not. It is not God’s way. It is not Biblical. We were made to need other believers. Hebrews tell us to “let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (10: 24-25). We were not made to live our lives alone. We were made to love one another, worship with one another, and go to church with one another.  After All, even The Lone Ranger had a sidekick.

Praise God for our Christian families.

P31Wife                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. Proverbs 31: 25