I think this will benefit everyone here, so please take it for whatever it's worth in your own life.
OK.
As many of you guys know, my lifestyle is pretty active and has been since my early 20s and even earlier. I love to travel, do lots of stuff, and have a good time. By God's grace, I have some wonderful & awesome friends to share life with. Even this past week and weekend, in celebration of my 35th birthday, I was taken out to eat several times, surprised with a roadtrip, experienced the wonders of indoor skydiving, taken to a great film, given an introductory Cessna flight lesson, and the list goes on and on. And all this surrounded by people who clearly love me and know me well enough to know what will bless me. These are people that I "do life" with. They're just awesome friends.
So over the past week, after having seen this pattern over the years of me enjoying life & having great friends to enjoy it with, SEVERAL people have marveled at how great I have it and how much they'd like to have friends like that etc. Almost all of the people (and I'm talking folks at work, my brother's girlfriend, family members, etc.) are unconverted. And when we get into these conversations, by God's grace, I've been able to say where I get such friends from. In fact, just a few minutes ago, a coworker talked about how hard it is to have a solid bunch of good real friends in this town and talked about how even outgoing people find themselves a little lonely in this area. So anyway, on more than one occasion, God stepped in and had me telling these folks where I actually met these friends. I had to think about it for a bit, and wouldn't have automatically said this had God not directed the convo, but then I realized that I'd met them all ...
... in church.
Whether former church fellowships or the one I'm part of now, these great people were found right there in church. Which blows away the stereotype that "church people" are boring or old or only do "religious" things or can only be found in "pews" once or twice a week.
To the contrary, they're folks who we do real community with, they're our friends, they visit us when we're sick and celebrate birthdays with us and go out of the country with us (Italy next month, by the way!) and hang out and have deep convos and challenge us and get silly with us and all of that.
So I say all this (thanks if you're still reading) to say that a testimony to God's goodness and real "life" and true biblical community has been pouring out from my life for some time now ... in a way that has been in the Bible this whole time but that I'd never given any thought to.
"Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
And this has been happening in front of observant unbelievers for years, though I'm just realizing it. We're talking basic John 13, y'all.
I'd always focused my attention on whether I was being a good witness to Christ in other ways (which are important too) but I hadn't even thought about unbelievers observing over the years that here is this person (me) who has the benefit of sisters and brothers who actually love her. I have an eerie feeling that this is a major thing that can and will open up hearts to receive the truth of the Gospel. Yeah, I'm probably late in this realization, but please forgive my slow learning. I'm just thoroughly fascinated by this, y'all! I've been thinking unregenerate cats around me have been looking at bumper stickers or my Gospel presentations or whether I arrive at work early or my Christian tee-shirts at the gym or my "seed-sowing" remarks, and they may have been ... but what they've been looking at soooo much more is ... love.
Over and over in this past week I've heard people say "I need friends like that." And I'm convinced they're not just talking about friends who surprise them on their birthday. They mean real friends who love them and truly care.
I guess the whole point of this is to challenge myself and us to continue to take the "love one another" admonition of Christ seriously, put it into practice, and remember that the practice of giving and receiving love says volumes more to folk than words we preach.
G&P!
