Brittney Ford, Member since 2007

James 4:7-9 

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Reflection:

My mother-in-law used to always tell her boys growing up “to have a friend, you have to be a friend.” I love these words, and I find myself using them on my children, my students, and even the adults in my family. We are never too old to be reminded about the true calling of friendship — to genuinely love and care for our friends. To BE a friend means reaching out. Sending that text. Setting up a time to grab dinner. Calling a friend on the phone (yes, talking on the phone!) to check-in. Just BE.

The same mindset applies to our relationship with Christ. Give Jesus your time, your heart, your sleepless nights. Give him you and get more of him in return. Nothing is too small to take to the throne of The Almighty. He wants to hear our greatest joys and our smallest concerns and everything in between. I truly believe he just wants a relationship with his children. 

“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (v.8). This is the central message of all of our relationships, and exactly the mantra my mother-in-law poured into her boys.

I believe there are also friendships that aren’t meant to last forever. Some friends are only in our lives for a season, and they bless us and uphold us during that time. We can also give ourselves permission to hold onto the gentle, heartwarming memories, and then let the friendship go. It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on. 

But do you have friends who are just naturally so good at staying connected? I do, and I love that they continue to pursue our friendship. I work to be better at doing the same. Yes, we are all busy. But are we really too busy to connect and to be in community with one another? We all have time. And for the most part, we choose how we spend this time. Choose relationships. Choose to BE a friend. 

Ultimately, relationships are a two-way street. And this includes our relationship with our Heavenly Father. God never wants us to let him go. We can pursue God today.

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, help me to hold on tightly to you in a world that seems so unsettling. Thank you for caring for me and for being in the details of my daily life. Show me the friends around me that I need to hang on to. In your name I pray. Amen.