The last couple of days Dave and I have been visiting friends. It has been wonderful!
We left home on Thursday morning stopping in Tucson and spending time with old friends. Then on down the road and another short visit with friends and neighbors. We spent time with family and then the last two nights and a day in the home of more friends, enjoying their company.
Last night we gathered for a time of feasting where we made some new friends. It was a great time for us. We felt part of the family, We shared delicious food, the joy and the laughter, the hopes and the dreams. It was wonderful!
It’s amazing how God’s love knits hearts together.
Do me a favor. Stop for a moment and think about the friends you hold dear. As their names and faces are fore front in your mind pray for them and thank God for them. Now, think about the qualities in your relationship with them. What makes them the special friends they are?
Those qualities and those people are a blessing from the Lord! They are a gift.
Did you know that God has friends? The Bible tells us that Abraham was a friend of God. Jesus said to his disciples that they were friends.
“ You are My friends if you do what I tell you. 15 I do not call you servants that I own anymore. A servant does not know what his owner is doing. I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from My Father. 16 You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you. I have set you apart for the work of bringing in fruit. Your fruit should last. And whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you.” John 15:14-16 NLV
How great it is to be called God’s friend!
Friends share heart to heart, they share one another’s sorrows, they encourage and build one another up. It’s a relationship of giving, of openness, of loving.
“A friend loves at all times…” Proverbs 17:17 NLV
“A man who has friends must be a friend, but there is a friend who stays nearer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 NLV
We have a friend in Christ – a friend who loves at all times, a friend who stays close by in every situation.
The warmth of last evening will be with me for a very long time. It is imprinted on my heart. It is just another confirmation of how dearly the Father loves me. It is also a reminder of the type of daily relationship He wants to share with me. Jesus said he wasn’t keeping secrets from his friends. God said the same about Abraham, his friend.
“And the Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 since Abraham will become a great and powerful nation, because good will come to all the nations of the earth through him? ” Genesis 18:17-18 NLV
I truly believe that God wants to say about each one of us what He said about and experienced with Abraham. He desires to share His heart with us, to not only be our Father but our friend.
Yes, I am grateful for friendship!