The Thick and Thin Friend

Memorial Box Monday Edition

When I first became a Christian I was missing a big piece of my walk. I was missing friends. I had a couple friends. At that time, not too many real friends, but I had friends. What I was missing were real friends. Friends who understood my faith. Friends who supported, encouraged, and challenged me. Friends like I read about in books. I have two sisters who didn't live near me at the time, and though one knew my faith, only had so much time for me via the phone. I was struggling with panic disorder at the time and there were many things I prayed about. The thing I prayed the most about at the time was friends. I prayed long and hard for friends that I could experience this life as a Christian with.

At the time I had nothing in sight. I was going to a church with an awesome teaching pastor but where no one seemed to notice I was there. I would linger a little before and after service but after a year and a half not a single person acknowledged me there or invited me to anything. I wanted a Christian friend more than anything, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen to me, and as shy as I was it was even more distant. Those days were tough for me, trying to teach myself and encourage myself. Lets just say my understandings and decisions weren't always the best. I would lay and pray and ask the Lord "Lord please could I have a friend who was a Christian".

Through a series of events, about 4 years later I started going to a particular church, and after a series of events started spending time with a woman named Arlene. Arlene was a tad older than me but we always had so much fun that I loved spending time with her.

I can't begin to explain how important she is to me. How she has encouraged me. How she has sharpened me, like iron on iron. How she has challenged me. How she has loved me. How she has taught me. How she has encouraged me. How she has supported me. How she has helped me in my walk.

At different times we have talked about wondering if our friends were the type that stick through hard times, through thick and thin. She always told me she would expect me to leave her in tough times. And I too had never had a friend who would go through the really tough times with me. Arlene and I have been through THE RINGER. Going through numerous people drama, church breakups, deaths, fights, attacks, accusations, and all kinds of hell she has stuck by me. When people have attacked her and when people have attacked me and when we fought even with each other, we always got through it together.

There were plenty of times it would be easy for her to walk away from me. But she didn't. She is the type of friend that tells me when I am wrong. She is the type of friend that protects me when people come against me. She is the type of friend that I can know will go through the fires with me in this life.

When I prayed for a friend - I was really praying for Arlene. I am amazed that the Lord had something so special in mind for me. Someone to teach me to be a friend, to teach me to be a wife, to teach me to be a child of God and sit at the foot of Christ. I have some very special and amazing people in my life, but I would not be who I am and where I am without Arlene - that is for sure. Paul said "follow me as I follow Christ". In the meantime I have been following Arlajean as she follows Christ. She is my real life Linny.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel.? - Proverbs 27:9

This week I am putting a picture of Arl and I in my memorial box.

  

The Admonishment

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
Romans 3:23 (NIV)

So. This is yet another scripture that is helping us see our position without Christ. It is reassuring to know the ALL have fallen short. I know that when I am the only one who had gotten in trouble for something then it is much more unsettling than when others are in trouble with me.

For instance, one time my boss called me to his office to talk. I got there and him and my other boss stood there and told me where they felt I was falling short on things. It erupted because of a miscommunication and really something that was not my fault, but they did have valid things where we could all see I was falling short with. Basically due to a period of understaffing I was put into reactive mode, and once we were fully staffed again I was like stuck in that reactive mode instead of moving back to proactive mode. I hadn't noticed this until my bosses brought it to my attention, and I appreciate them for that in helping me see how I could see a better job and improve. However I have to say that it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of working at my job to be singled out for everything that could have been negative about me at that time.

In comparison one time someone was complaining about my entire department saying that we weren't doing something a certain way (i honestly don't have a clue about what this was about anymore). My boss came in and gathered the three of us around him to explain what he wanted us to do differently in the future. After he left we made an action plan and tried our best to stick to it. This experience was not nearly as uncomfortable because we were in trouble because of the department we were in and the current policies at that time. So we couldn't be expected to have not done wrong. So because it was our lot in life at that moment to be in trouble it didn't feel near as bad as the time I was singled out.

So I guess it makes me feel unified with my peoples to know that we all fall short. Kind of like if we had to run the mile in 1 minute and I knew noone else could do it either I wouldn't feel as bad. Though the neatest thing of all is that though we all fall short the Lord lifts us up to the place we would be if we hadn't fallen short. Like in gym class given a pass even though we didn't pass the mile test, or if my boss had said "ill take the fall for you, no worries".

Not having the potential to be sinfree doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do what Christ would have us do. Because His instructions for us are just that - for us - so that we would have an easier life. So rock on with your bad selves... or good selves as the case may be. Because of what Christ did on the cross we all look good and righteous in the eyes of God, even though there is no one righteous, not even one.

The Unity

Take heart, for I have overcome the world!!!

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Romans 3:9 (NIV)


So it appears that this is saying that Jews and gentiles are equal under sin and that although God had initially made the Jews his people, that due to their rejection of him, that the gentiles are now equally deserving of his law and fulfillment of that law. This is due to the newly christianized Jews' pride in being "the circumcision". Paul was fighting against this attitude to show the Jews that the gentiles are now too equal under sin.

I think that though it seems like a cut and dry statement, that this is a problem that we too face in the church today. People develop allegiences to their denomination and because they like their denomination best (otherwise they'd probably be elsewhere) they tend to look down on people from other denominations thinking that they are not [fillintheblankwith charismatic /scholarly /worshipful /contemporary /traditional] enough. I wish that there was a way that we could cut down denomination lines. If we were all just the church, as we should be, then the differences in each church baptist/ methodist / presbyterian wouldn't be so well defined. And then a church could go by its name instead of by the sect it represents. Ah well but then I would probably lament on how hard it is to find a church with similar doctrine as myself.

Adam Clarke points out that though the Jews were priveleged because they had the law, that they too had sinned and fallen short of it, this losing the privelege that they had been born to. For though they had the law which should have given them an additional advantage over the unknowing - they still could not keep it, which puts them in the same position of the gentile.

Guzik points out that Paul too is Jewish and the "we" truly is a "we jews". That the pagan, the jew, and the moralist are all under sin by law and then condemnation. He mentions that we are under the power of sin. That we are under it, and slave to it. The only one that can free us from this slavery is Christ and the cross.

The mystery / plan of God as we learn in Ephesians is that Jews and Gentiles would come together in Christ to form one body, the church. So this is a statement that certainly supports that notion, and give a means to seek equality under Christ, which would be necessary to find unity.

This verse should also convict us in our heart of hearts that we are under sin, that we would be condemned without Jesus and that ought to lead us back to Christ.