This week I have been reading the book, "Real Marriage," by Mark and Grace Driscoll and found God speaking to me about something quiet surprising. Friendship! Of course you and your spouse should be friends and Skipp and I are best friends at that. However, that was not the friendships God was talking to me about.
I am going to get a little honest with you here; I have very few friends. Most of you who read this will probably think that statement to be ludicrous. I can hear you all now, "You have me! I am your friend! You have all kinds of friends Becky." After you read this blog you will come to the same realization that I have and that you too have very few friends.
Friendship is something that is taken for granted in our culture. For example I have 503 "friends" on Facebook. Really, 503? I probably know all of those people but are they really friends? The bible says in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone may lay down his life for his friends." Of those 503 people on Facebook how many would I lay my life down for, or they for me? Very few I imagine.
True friendship is hard, time consuming, and costly. I have people in my life that I have been friendly with for 15+ years but I am coming to realize we really aren't friends. So how am I defining what a friend is? Let me show you...
"Friendship is costly in everything- time, energy, emotion and sometimes money." Mark Driscoll
"Friendship is to make conversation, to share a joke, to perform mutual acts of kindness, to read together well -written books, to share in trifling and in serious matters, to disagree though without animosity-just as a person debates with himself-and in the very rarity of disagreement to find the salt of normal harmony, to teach each other something or to learn from one another, to long with impatience for those absent, to welcome them with gladness upon their arrival" Augustine from Confessions
I have Skipp, my best friend! The one I share everything with, who I am naked both physically and emotionally in front of. I bare my life with him and sees everything and loves me anyways. If your spouse isn't your best friend then you have work to do. No one should know you better, or love you more.
I have three other women in my life that are truly, by the above statements, my friends. These women are all of differing ages, personalities and vocations. Being all different they do share some common similarities. They all share themselves, the good, the bad, the ugly- honest, raw, and totally unguarded. They all bring every conversation back to Jesus- always back to His words, His promises, and His truths. They make effort to love and be loved- they are unselfish in our friendship. Finally, even when we disagree we never have hurt feelings because there is a safety that what ever happens we have each other's best in mind.
I have many, many, many friendlies! These are the people that I live my life around whom I enjoy and they enjoy me. I have many rich and great friendlies! I am actually very blessed in my life, but I don't have the ability to love all of them the way I do the above four people. Jesus had many followers, 12 disciples, and 3 friends, and he was God!
What do you do if you don't have anyone in your life like I do? Ask yourself this question-
Am I a good friend to others? Sometimes we don't have friendships because we aren't a good friend, we are selfish, and unloving. We are in it for what it gives me not what it will cost me- this is true in marriage and in life~
I am blessed with very few friends, and many friendlies. I grieved this lesson because I would love to everyone be a friend, but I will be content with being friendly to everyone. Be blessed and have a great weekend!
Friday, February 24, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Unfair Trade
It is that time of year again~ For me, it is the time of year that we transition out of our hold up of Winter and head into our busy Spring that includes cleats, running shoes, baseballs, and lots and lots of watching my kids compete. We spend the winter coming together, growing and enjoying just being a family after 9 months of track, baseball, and football. This year though I seem to not only becoming into that season with my family but also my life.
I have spent the last six years in a winter season almost like a caterpillar being transformed in a cocoon. I have spent six years being completely transformed from the inside out. In that six years I lost sixty pounds, went from having little kids to teenagers, came to appreciate who I really am and actually like her a lot, become totally captured with my husband, and fallen totally in love with Jesus. Am I saying before this time that I didn't love Jesus, or I wasn't digging my husband? No, but I couldn't love them they way they deserved until I woke up and loved the girl inside.
Did I spend those six years comfortable? Uh~ NO! Those were some of the hardest years in my life and yet that is exactly what I needed to become who God knew I was all along. You see we run from hardships, we curse God when life is tough, we yell and scream and kick at the injustice of it all. I admit I did that sometimes, but what I see looking back is I needed the pressure of those circumstances to propel me into a deep walk with Jesus.
If you have a good job, with a good life, good kids, good marriage, and a good church where is your motivation for a GREAT God? I look back and I was just a two dimensional version of who I am now. Now I feel like Dorthy coming into the land of Oz after living a black and white existence.
Usually when we are going through trouble or pressure we feel like God or life is unfair. You know what is really unfair? That the very one that created us had to take on our sins and pay for our death with his life. That is the most unfair trade in the history of mankind! So I will take my pain, my trouble, my sickness, my child with a disability, my church that is a mess, my marriage that is unkind, my rebellious kids, my old cars, my lack of income, my... whatever you choose to put in there and realize that nothing I go through will ever compare to what Jesus did for me. What I go through today shapes who I am tomorrow, so today instead of feeling sorry for yourself, and beating yourself up why don't you just ask God this question:
If you laid your life down for me then you must have a plan for my life. What lessons do I need to learn from my circumstances to teach me who you know I already am to live out the life you saved me for?
For the record, I am now completely different six years later. If you don't like where you are today are you brave enough to let God completely change you? I am glad I let him change me, because you know... I am a pretty neat person because greater is He that is in me! Thanks Jesus for the unfair trade! I will take it any day!
I have spent the last six years in a winter season almost like a caterpillar being transformed in a cocoon. I have spent six years being completely transformed from the inside out. In that six years I lost sixty pounds, went from having little kids to teenagers, came to appreciate who I really am and actually like her a lot, become totally captured with my husband, and fallen totally in love with Jesus. Am I saying before this time that I didn't love Jesus, or I wasn't digging my husband? No, but I couldn't love them they way they deserved until I woke up and loved the girl inside.
Did I spend those six years comfortable? Uh~ NO! Those were some of the hardest years in my life and yet that is exactly what I needed to become who God knew I was all along. You see we run from hardships, we curse God when life is tough, we yell and scream and kick at the injustice of it all. I admit I did that sometimes, but what I see looking back is I needed the pressure of those circumstances to propel me into a deep walk with Jesus.
If you have a good job, with a good life, good kids, good marriage, and a good church where is your motivation for a GREAT God? I look back and I was just a two dimensional version of who I am now. Now I feel like Dorthy coming into the land of Oz after living a black and white existence.
Usually when we are going through trouble or pressure we feel like God or life is unfair. You know what is really unfair? That the very one that created us had to take on our sins and pay for our death with his life. That is the most unfair trade in the history of mankind! So I will take my pain, my trouble, my sickness, my child with a disability, my church that is a mess, my marriage that is unkind, my rebellious kids, my old cars, my lack of income, my... whatever you choose to put in there and realize that nothing I go through will ever compare to what Jesus did for me. What I go through today shapes who I am tomorrow, so today instead of feeling sorry for yourself, and beating yourself up why don't you just ask God this question:
If you laid your life down for me then you must have a plan for my life. What lessons do I need to learn from my circumstances to teach me who you know I already am to live out the life you saved me for?
For the record, I am now completely different six years later. If you don't like where you are today are you brave enough to let God completely change you? I am glad I let him change me, because you know... I am a pretty neat person because greater is He that is in me! Thanks Jesus for the unfair trade! I will take it any day!
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