Forty Years of Friendship

My in-laws posted this picture at their annual lobster fest.  They host this annual feast at their cottage in Northwest Indiana.  They have been friends with this group for forty years.  Through thick and thin.  Hard to get my head around that long a time.  In our transient culture, developing longstanding deep relationships is tough.  We are now in the sound bite generation.  Yet “social media” has reopened a number of relationships.  I have reconnected with my former Valparaiso fraternity big brother after many years through Facebook.  I have also reconnected with old family friends from our growing up years.

Relationships mean a lot to God.  God has wired us for this type of deep, personal relationships.  We have a group that we get together with for fellowship and bible study that we have known for nearly twenty years.  We know there is no burden that we can’t share.  The ladies get together for breakfast once a month and share each other burdens.  We know we don’t have to impress them.  They accept us as we are. 

Then there is my CLC group which has been meeting faithfully every week (14 of us men) for over a year and a half.  I love those guys.  We have ages ranging from mid 20’s to early 80’s.  When I was in my twenties and thirties, relationships really didn’t matter much to me (except immediate family relationships).  But friendships really matter to me now that I am in my mid fifties.  My kids are out of the house and while I have a great marital relationship, the extension of good friends is so important. 

Each of us has to have those kinds of friendships.  Friends that you can be truly transparent with.  Friends to bear burdens with.  We can’t be all that God intended for us to be without friends like that.

The Way of Wisdom

Our pastor Joe is teaching a series on wisdom.  This is the second of the series.  Like many of Pastor Joe’s sermons, it is incredibly insightful.  This morning’s title was the Way of Wisdom.  The four points were:

1) Know God – find a way daily to remind yourself of how great God is and how much He has done for you.  Every morning we wake up hungry looking for value.  If we don’t seek God as the source of that value, we will look for it elsewhere.  If you don’t seek that value, you will do foolish things in your own wisdom.

2) Know Yourself – Proverbs 3:5 says to “trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”..  Every day you need to deflate yourself and not think too much of yourself.  I can never think too much of myself when the God of the universe had to sacrifice His son to save me.  Yet God thought so much of me that He did just that.  Pastor Joe made reference to this clip from Toy Story which is perfect for this point.

3) Know God’s Word – God provides the handbook, the “database of best practices” that we can use to discover Him and wisdom.

4) Trust God’s Way – Dive into God’s love knowing that He desires the absolute best for you.  Recognize that pain will be an implicit part of the process.  Pain is never thought by our children as positive but they are able to look back and see the benefit it brings.  Pain is part of the process of learning wisdom.