The 2:00 AM Friend

A 2:00 AM friend is someone you can call at anytime of the day or night and tell them anything. I first heard this term from Pat Morley at Man in the Mirror ministry.  Guys in particular are notorious for not having friends that we can be completely transparent with. When I was younger, I was always on my guard and very hesitant to open up my "broom closet" to anyone else. As I have gotten older, I have appreciated being honest and open with friends. It is vital that guys have close friends that are guys. While I am extremely open with my wife, there are certain things that only guys can relate to. I am sure the same thing applies to women.

One of my friends is a police officer and we were studying this particular topic. He has another similar category called the "DUI friend". He said when he is booking someone on a DUI charge, they have to have someone come to the police station to pick them up. He has seen people get out their phone and literally scroll through hundreds of names before saying they have no one they can call.  Who is your DUI friend? Do you have one? Who can you call and say I am in trouble due to my own stupidity.

Jesus Christ had twelve disciples but he had three 2 AM friends, Peter, James, and John. Keep in mind this is Jesus in His humanity. As God, He is fully present and with all who have faith in Him. But as a man, He maintained a close knit circle. They were with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet as friends, they failed Him at times. They fell asleep in the garden for example as Jesus bore His soul before the Father.

We just finished a retreat with couples that we have spent the better part of the past twenty years of life with. We laughed together, we worshiped together, we prayed together, we played stupid games together. All part of life. Many of those men, I would not hesitate to call at 2:00 AM. God has not wired us to be alone. We need community.

Laws Are For Our Good

Deb and I have returned from a couple of weeks where we were gone a lot. We were in Lima, Peru visiting my mother and stepfather who live there. It is our fifth time to Peru and it has been fascinating watching the changes over the past ten years. One of the things that does not appear to have changed a lot is the traffic laws. I would say that they appear to be "selectively enforceable" meaning that some laws appear to be enforced some of the time. As an example, stop signs seem to be optional. When I asked my stepfather about that a few years ago, that was his answer. He also said that if you stopped at a stop sign, you may be likely to get rammed into from behind because people don't expect you to stop at the stop sign. On the other hand, my stepfather got a ticket for an isolated occurrence where he was at a corner and he had taken his seat belt off to get something out of his pocket.

Government laws are designed for our own good; or we would like to believe they are. They are not perfect, but that is the intent. God's laws on the other hand are perfectly designed for our good. Take abstinence and sex outside of marriage for example. People will rationalize that it can't possibly be right. Actress Scarlett Johansson recently said “You have to choose a path. I think the idea of marriage is very romantic; it’s a beautiful idea and the practice of it can be a very beautiful thing. I don’t think it’s natural to be a monogamous person. I might be skewered for that, but I think it’s work. It’s a lot of work. And the fact that it is such work for so many people — for everyone — the fact of that proves that it is not a natural thing. It’s something I have a lot of respect for and have participated in, but I think it definitely goes against some instinct to look beyond.”

We sometimes think that God's laws are onerous and therefore not for our good. But they are. God has not designed a system to enable failure, but enable good. There are consequences of immoral behavior. On the other hand, perfect intimacy in the context of marriage is the most fulfilling thing possible. Note that we are unable to uphold God's laws perfectly. They are the gold standard, so to speak but we break them every day. That is why the Bible says that the law leads us to Jesus - "the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith" (Gal 3:24).

In Christ, we have a perfect sacrifice that positionally puts us in a right standard before God for eternity. But we still have this sticky wicket which theologians call sanctification. That is we are right before God positionally but we can still mess up. God's laws are still valid for right living. We can declare them invalid like Scarlett Johansson does, but that does not change things. It may make us feel better for a time as we continue to break God's laws, but they will not change the consequences of wrong behavior.