Skip to main content

Stop! Take the time to ask and listen!

This week I went through a new experience.  On August 1, a college roommate and a dear friend died.  August 1 I began my own journey in grief.  As I am sure you understand I have buried dozens of people as a pastor.  When it's someone who has predated your ministry, who loved you and you returned that love for as young men, its just different.  It effects you a whole different way.

Had the opportunity to connect with several others who fall into this category of friendship.  In my own moments of processing, I realized something.  I was given true gifts, in the friendships I made with these men.  I have never had the like again in 20 years.  Sure I have loved and been loved since then, but it was different.

These guys loved a man without a title.
These men loved a guy who's faults were large.
These men loved a guy they could have easily walked away from.
These men stuck through it - any and all of the events that forced others away.
I am forever in their debt.

Yet pondering over the scene of our friend who passed, I realized that while we all had a great love for each other, we had let life, jobs, family and other obligations get in the way.  We had let the distance and the time constraints cause us to miss the times of deep need that occurred.  We had put the obligation on the other person (s) instead of remembering that God had given us something special and that needed to continued to be nurtured and protected.

I am the chiefest of sinners in all of these things.  My friend went through at times some dark seasons, and I thought primarily of myself.  I didn't initiate calls.  I didn't pursue continuing the relationship.  I justified myself by saying if he needs me he will call me, and I was there when he did.

But looking back I wonder - should I have done more?

Here is my resolve.  To learn the lesson of this event.  If I never have the gift of another friendship like I have with these men, then these men will know that they have a good friend in me.  I will pursue.  I will connect.   I will love them in Christ.   I will ask and answer the hard questions.

The phrase says, "You don't know what you got until its gone."
My reply will be, "I'll treasure what I have right here"

2 "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."  Gal 6:2


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Recovery

It's been a long 5 years.  Five years ago much of what I valued was ripped away from me savagely.  People I thought I could trust and had long experiences with made decisions that left deep wounds; for myself and for my family.  God was gracious.  When everything inside me screamed to quit, He said no.  He fought both for me and with me.  Where the Bible says, "I will never leave you or forsake you" became something especially real to me.  It continues to be real these past few months. In May I received word that my heart disease had improved and my heart function had doubled. This was not supposed to happen.  It had been 23% for 5 years, but all the sudden, tests came back at 46%.  I was convinced of a screw up.  I was dead wrong (no pun intended).  God has restored what Satan tried to steal.  I can say "It is well with my soul." In June I had the opportunity to go home again.  God opened the door for me to speak at a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Where's God In the Attack? (Psalm 25)

Temperament can be described as the way you have been wired by God.  In some people God has wired them to be doers, others thinking, others feelers and yet others lovers.  There is not a bad temperament.  There is not a temperament that is greater than another.   There is only how God has wired you (the strengths and the weaknesses) and what will you do with it, for good and for bad. As a combination doer and thinker,  I often fight the battle of engaging before I know the strength of my enemy.   After failing in this area so many times in my life, I came to a conclusion that I will no longer attempt to fight a spiritual problem with a physical solution.   There would no longer be moves to flank my foe with better logic and tactics until I had taken the problem to the Lord and sought His solution.  See when I fought the battle without the Lord, I didn't use the weapons of OUR warfare (2 Cor 10:3-5).  I fought using the same tactics of my en...
Post a Comment
Read more

When It's Time to Let Go

In the last four years I have seen a lot relationships in my life change.  There were people who I was very close to who went a different direction, just because of life.   There was the reality of leaving Pittsburgh; moving far away.   That would naturally change some relationships.   There was also those relationships I thought were solid and would stand the test of time.   Many of those have drastically changed.  Of all of these, these hurt the worst.   These were the ones I poured the most into.  These were the ones I thought I could take the most from. I try to find the lesson from these relationships that ended in a form of betrayal.  You may think that to be a strong word, but how else should I  interpret it?  The church leader who promised ABC and then reneged.   The church leader who joined me in guise of love and then in my moment of greatest need sought only their best perceived inte...
Post a Comment
Read more