9 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. 10 For if [c]either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not [d]another to lift him up. 11 Furthermore, if two lie down together they [e]keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if [f]one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.
13 A poor yet wise lad is better than an old and foolish king who no longer knows how to receive [g]instruction. 14 For he has come out of prison to become king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom. 15 I have seen all the living under the sun throng to the side of the second lad who [h]replaces him. 16 There is no end to all the people, to all who were before them, and even the ones who will come later will not be happy with him, for this too is vanity and striving after wind.
If we ever needed more convincing that God didn’t create us to be loners, here comes Solomon with a classic. It’s a strange thing in business how productivity multiplies as people band together in a team. As Solomon notes, when two people join together, they produce more than double what one person could.
But productivity isn’t the only reason to join forces with others, as he gives examples of keeping warm, fighting, etc. But one stands out to me, which is the “woe to the one who falls”. Let’s face it, no matter how good we think we are, we’re going to fall. Failure is a fact of life, as evidenced by famous inventors like Thomas Edison who tried thousands of times before getting a light bulb that stayed lit.
This is also echoed in the second passage, where we have a king who won’t take instruction. He has become too prideful to be corrected. He thinks he cannot fail, yet he has only made his fall even more inevitable. No doubt he had a great deal of wisdom, but failure to heed instruction puts him in the category of “fool”. Someone will then easily replace the old king, because he failed to realize that we never stop learning.
So the real question is what happens when we fail? Well, we’re supposed to get back up, right? That’s a lot easier said then done, and v. 10 tells us the best way. That is, if we have someone to help us up, it’s easier to get up, and we are less likely to succumb to any whim of pride from doing it ourselves. No, we were not made to be loners, for God created us in his image, and He doesn’t like being alone either.
Instead, we must learn to depend on God, and upon those He brings into our lives. We may even need to try being friendly to find out that there are lots of folks waiting to join us on this journey of life. The old hymn “Trust and Obey” states, “When we walk with the Lord…” Note the “we” in walking with the Lord, and it continues throughout the hymn, until later in verse 4, there is “fellowship sweet”. Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, but the author was right on target, we were meant to follow Christ together, as we trust, and as we obey.