Do You have a Friend Like Mine?
I have a friend. You need one, too. Do you have one? I hope you do.
I can’t get enough of her. She is real. She is raw. She is hungry.
She immediately brings a smile. Loud, holding your sides, laughter. Then tears and a deep breath at the passionate grasping for life full-on amidst the pain. She definitely knows the pain. The pain of addiction, divorce, abuse, estranged children, poverty.
My friend is misunderstood, even mocked and derided by those who should know better. They fail to see that we all are no better.
I wish you could meet my friend. Then you’d know exactly who she is. Why? Because she lets you know her. She doesn’t hide. Equally exposed is all her passion for Jesus alongside her struggles to say faithful to the Lord she loves.
There is never a question of who you’re dealing with. Honest, open, forthright with her failures and celebration of minuscule steps to victory.
After we’d known each other for a few years she told me that when we first met she hated me. I was shocked and confused. Prejudice. Her ethnic group doesn’t like my ethnic group. Wow. She’d been indoctrinated and it took awhile to release preconceived assumptions. Jesus opened our eyes to each other and gave us a friendship that blasts away cultural, economic, ethnic, social and continental barriers.
Yes, we live continents apart. Yes,I only see her every few years. Yes, our most recent hiatus was more than six years! No, separation hasn’t distanced us in the least.
I saw her this month—oh, the blessed, abundant yield of furlough is best known in good friends!
I was at a church event. We were all sitting respectfully and attentively in our seats when I saw her across the room. I saw her seeing me. We both wanted to jump out of our chairs and run across the room to each other, but we couldn’t disrupt the program. We looked at each other and pointed and smiled and tears welled with floods of emotion for a dear soul. Finally, when there was a break in the proceedings I jumped up and ran over to her. As if nothing else was going on around us we locked in a hug then broke away to see the face of our friend and then hugged again. She immediately began catching me up on her recent six years of turmoil and then we abruptly returned to our seats and the program.
It was hard for me to sit still. At the final amen I beelined for her and the next hour was awash with laughter, exhortation, tears, confession, hallelujahs and prayer. Others broke in for a hug and a quick exchange, but I couldn’t get enough of my friend’s heart.
In the time it’s taken for my sons to grow to our shoulders and beyond and the oldest’s voice to change, her husband left her and her daughter brought her three grand children, but no son-in-law. Yet, standing face to face with intense gaze, time melted away. Time doesn’t change the ability to relate to the core of your friend—the deepest part many only let God see—if even Him. Sadly, some think they can even hide from their creator.
Is it scary for you to be that kind of friend with another? To be that honest? With others? With yourself? With God? Do not be afraid.
When you reveal the depths to another, speak the truth in love—even while encumbered by your failures, the victory of His forgiveness shines through honesty.
And, passion for Jesus strips away the desire to hide. A passion like hers is rare. Many easily tire of her. But, I’d much rather be in the presence of one unashamed to speak of her difficulties and brokenness along her way to surrender than a hundred waxed-over, polished people who present themselves as able to carry life-giving water on their own.
As I’ve watched her grow in her relationship with Jesus over the years I am brought to remembrance of Jesus’ statement, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The meaning of Jesus’ words comes together powerfully in the life of my friend. She knows she has no righteousness to match the religious people. Hers is of a different sort.
When Jesus said, “Exceed” he didn’t mean do all that they do and go beyond it to an even higher self-righteous post. He meant be of a righteousness totally different than what man tries to accomplish on his own. He meant realize your righteousness comes from God alone and there is nothing you can do to better it. He meant exceed not by doing more but by surrendering to live in the righteousness of Jesus which is infinitely more powerful than any “right” of man, because Jesus secured it by His blood.
My friend knows this in her very core. And when I saw her face to face this month I was shaken again to the reality that I can do nothing on my own. It is Christ Jesus in me that is my real life.
Pray for her, would you? And for us, we all need to humbly realize He is our life. We can not make it on our own—most especially when we think we can.
