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In the past few days, I have to make many international calls due to a family matter. Because I just switched from landline to IP phone system, in order to avoid the horrendous charge from Verizon, I was worried about sound quality of the IP phone connection. After several calls later, the quality seem to hold up and I am satisfied – clear and no echo, at least.

Today’s technology is amazingly convenient. It can connect you to your friends and families through phones, internet emails, facebook, etc. No wonder, it is a worldwide “Web”. Frigyes Karinthy was a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and translator. He was the first proponent of the “Six Degrees of Separation” concept, in his 1929 short story “Chains”, according to Wiki. His proposed idea is that two individuals in the world are connected through, at most, five acquaintances. Therefore, if you have five acquaintances then you are connected with others 🙂

Talking to my colleagues in the hallway at my working place the other day, we were surprised to see someone we knew moves to a high-level management position, so fast. The conclusion we have is that he is well connected. I still remember when I came to my job; my manager taught me one thing. He said, “You should not be working all day long at your office without coming out to interact with other people. You have to make connections!”  I think he is right in a sense that we all need to be connected.

I think we all need to have a connection with others. However, we have to be careful on what kind of connection we are trying to build or cultivate. Motivation is the key to our connection with others because our motivation drives our time and effort. We can spend a lot of time to build up a connection with others because we want to be his / her friend or we want to be visible to him or her. In the end, our motivation defines our behavior and satisfaction or dissatisfaction. When we are focusing on personal gain in building up connections, we may find ourselves in a burdened situation. However, the burden feeling would be light and easy if we are focusing on God’s kingdom (Matthew 11:30). This is because we have a connection to our Lord. Through this connection, we have infinite resource and energy to lift up our burden and energize the connection that we are trying to build with others. Without the source of our Lord, our connection cannot hold up and would be interrupted frequently.

My dear brothers and sisters, do you have a connection with our Lord? Is this connection always “on” without noises or echo?  It is my prayer that we will maintain a consistent connection with Him daily and receive His manna from heaven to power up our connection with others without interruption. Because “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1:17a)