Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This Week’s Devotional Topic
YOUR CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
Each of us have a Circle Of Friends. Just think about some of yours. Friends are vital to a healthy life, spiritually and physically. A true friend loves at all times.
Proverbs 17:17 A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.
We learn and grow as we interact with friends. Fellowship and friendship make us better than we would be alone.
Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Let me tell you about some genuine friends. I am one of seven who met a little over a half century ago. These were young teenagers, all from different backgrounds but all Christians. God led them to a small Christian school in California. The school was K through 8 when a few of us became students there. It grew and added the 9th grade just in time for us. And they added the 10th grade and so on until there were seven of us in the first high school graduation class of that school. Two girls and five guys, we were the class of 1968.
During our High School years, girls were Cheer Leaders. Four of the five guys were involved in the various sports, baseball, basketball, track and flag football. The fifth was actively supporting those.
Seven graduates is ironic since the number 7 is known as the number indicating completion. And the five boys of that class remind me of a “quiver full” as referred to in scripture. Personally, I can identify with both of those numbers on two different levels. Five young men and two ladies. My wife and I were blessed with 5 children a quiver full. Five young men completed each other.
All seven of us each got married. One of us guys went into the military, becoming a Chaplain. The other men went on to college, getting involved in various forms of business, sales, management and some into ministry.
Over the years, all of us have supported each other through tough times and as we have gone through the loss of parents. At this point, my father, is the last remaining parent among our alumni group.
As we have gone through life, we have stayed in touch having had a few Class Reunions over the years.
Each of us have moved around, and seen other friends and family pass away. Most of us have had surgeries and there have been times when we were faced the possibility that any one of us would die. By God’s grace all seven of us are alive today.
There will come a time when one of us will graduate to glory, step through the pearly gates, absent from the body, present with the lord. As one of us has said about this process..”kicking this old carcass to the curb”
The remaining alumni will deal with that loss, laughing with each other, laughing at the events surrounding the missing person, crying at the loss, being comforted by remembering.
All of us have a “Circle of Friends”. The size of that circle will vary over time. And you may have times in life when you feel that you only have a very few friends or none at all. The fact is that you always have at least one friend. That friend that sticks closer than a brother, Jesus Christ, the “friend of sinners”. Your circle of friends is a gift from God.
James 1:17a Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.
Thank God for your friends. He uses all of them through the good and bad times to help you become the person you are. Take time today to pray for your friends. Reach out to them. Send a text, invest time today to call them. Or write a letter. Very few things touch us as much as a handwritten letter. Be a friend to your friends!
This week’s Scripture:
Proverbs 17:17; 27:17 and James 1:17
See this week’s playlist
