Posted on August 14, 2022 Posted By: HCCCategories: journey
Heartland Community Church
THE JOURNEY
Asking for a Friend: Face To Face
By Shelly Huston
As a youth, I remember planting our ½ acre garden every year. We purchased bags and bags of pink corn, making rows, planting rows, covering them with dirt, watering, and my least favorite task, hoeing. I remember my pink stained hands, and feet like it was yesterday. The smaller crops like melons, cucumbers, squash, consisted of shorter rows, and hoeing didn’t seem so bad. However, those very long rows of corn were almost torture to my zealous ten-year-old self. I not-so-fondly remember the host of little weeds, which were strong, stubborn, and seemingly never-ending. I’d enthusiastically abolish them, and in what seemed like a matter of days or even hours, they were back again, sometimes with a vengeance. (Especially those awful milk weeds. I’d pull them, and be covered in slimy milk-like goo, a sticky-stink that stays with you hours later. I’m sure there is a good lesson in milk weeds, but we will save that for another day.)
Many years and ears of corn later, I find the garden principal still at work in my everyday life. Forrest Gump wisdom dictates that life is like a box of chocolates. Shelly Huston pseudo-wisdom indicates it’s more like a row of corn. It’s easy to buy the seeds, plant, even water, but weeding, well, that’s a commitment that few of us are willing to embrace long term. I find friendships, relationships, not so dissimilar. Making friends usually comes easy for me. It starts with taking an interest, actively listening, and offering understanding and empathy. Those to me are the planting, watering, caring steps, aka foundations of a good friendship or relationship. However, watching for tiny pests (like jealousy, envy, greed), or tackling the weeds (doubt, discouragement, deception) and annihilating them is hard work.
It takes knowing your friends well, watching for subtle shifts and addressing them early and thoroughly, instead of letting the ‘weeds’ overtake the garden, which really takes no time at all.
Observe, Reflect, Apply: Grab a notecard, or open a fresh note in your phone. Start a bullet list of each piece of wisdom in these verses (hint: there’s a lot!). Place an alert on the note, or post the list where you can see it. Take a moment each day to consider how you might exercise one of these friendship muscles. Invite God to help you strengthen your ability in one of these areas. Consider adding a new prayer focus from this verse each week until you’ve made it through them all!
Have you ever allowed yourself to truly experience the immeasurable riches of God’s grace and kindness toward us? Many of us easily remember our transgressions, our mistakes, the moves we made that still haunt us today. Even years later, we may still believe that we really don’t deserve immeasurable grace. We might think we may have ‘earned’ a small measure of grace, a portion to help us live our lives without drowning in great depths of guilt and shame. Instead of continuing to serve the life-long sentence I believe I deserve, I’ve been given a pardon. God, who is rich in mercy, didn’t pardon me because my moves may have gotten less offensive over time. He saved me according to his own measure of mercy, which is without end. His measuring cup is much deeper than ours; his is bottomless.
Let his love be perfected in us. Perfected is making something completely free from faults or defects. While we weren’t born to know how to love perfectly, the Spirit of God does. He is working in us to help teach us how to love like Jesus loves. This kind of perfect love is steadfast and unchanging. Recognizing that our own love still is less than steadfast and continually changing is evidence that God is still working in us. Is it possible for you to love your friends and family with greater depth? Are you running toward God for help in this area or are your shortcomings so obvious to you that you turn away?
As a young lady, I greatly enjoyed raising horses. Some of my very closest relationships as a girl were with a horse. They were great listeners, quite affectionate, and most were gentle in nature. When they were feeling feisty, you learned to love that about them and find a way to channel that energy. While we didn’t use spurs on our horses when growing up, we did tap a foot on each side, make a certain sound, and brace for the run. Hebrews 10 admonishes us to consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. While physical spurs are not suggested in a good friendship, could it be that as a real friend I might need to provide you with a foot tap now and then? Hebrews goes on to encourage us to not give up meeting together but encourage one another. We need each other, we are good for each other. Just like the Avengers, we are always more powerful together than we are apart.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Not only did they meet at church, outside of church, and in the parking lot, they ate together in their homes. Where are we the most vulnerable, honest, real, and sincere? In our homes. To open our home to others, is often the first place to opening our hearts to genuine friendships. We’ve become such an isolated species. Could it be we’ve shrunk our capacity to care, listen and be a good friend? Let’s hope not. Maybe it can start at Starbucks, with a good cup of coffee and conversation. But eventually, perhaps you can take them home to meet your family.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus. When we allow others to enter our lives, our homes, our world, do we think we will experience expressions of very strong disapproval or judgement when they truly see the real us? Is that our greatest fear? Is that why we are reluctant to do so? When Jesus entered the homes of those he loved and knew, did he go off on what he saw, found, heard, or felt, publicly or privately? Did he criticize their lifestyle choices, their housekeeping skills, the contents of their fridge or the taste of their meatloaf? No. He did not declare them awful to his disciples, he often declared them friends.
In thse verses, God challenges us not just to speak it, but to live it. How do you live your real life? Does it need a little tweaking? Perhaps. This week the tweaking for me lies in doing everything without grumbling, complaining, or murmuring. I’ve become quite good at murmuring. When I hurt, I murmur in Japanese. When I’m overwhelmed, I murmur in a completely different mystery language. When I’m highly frustrated, I mummer in an almost understandable tongue. Let’s return to tweaking, to examining, to reviewing, and making the minor adjustments the Holy Spirit is brining to your mind right now. Is God calling you out of the shallow ends of the pool, into the deeper places? Address the little things, so that he can show you the great things he has in mind for you.
{extra journey resources}
CLICK HERE to visit The Bible Project site and explore their super simple, super informative Bible videos (and other resources). You can also download The Bible Project App HERE.
CLICK HERE to get the Read Scripture App, from our friends at The Bible Project.
CLICK HERE for more on how to use the observe-reflect-apply approach to getting the most out of your Bible reading.
The Bible App Get the free YouVersion Bible for your phone, tablet, or computer. Experience the Bible anywhere, with options to highlight, save notes, and share what you are reading with others.
The Bible App For Kids YouVersion partnered with OneHope to develop the Bible App for Kids, designing it specifically to engage children with Bible stories on an age-appropriate level. The Bible App for Kids is a free app for Android, Apple, and Kindle devices, available in over 60 languages.
Bible Gateway Provides advanced Bible searching capabilities, which allow readers to find passages in scripture based on keywords, phrases, or scripture reference.
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