Seeing God through Friendship

Has God ever "shown up" in your life? If someone were to ask you "where have you seen God at work in your life?" how would you answer them? My first answer to that question would be "through friendship." It was through friendship that the Lord first made himself real to me. It was through friendship that He showed me that He is near and that He cares. It was through friendship that I was first able to "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8) and that initial taste made me hungry for more.


If the "Magnificent Life" has to do with "seeing" God (which must happen before we can "reflect God"), than one of the things we need to remember is that God works through people and can oftentimes be glimpsed through the friends in our lives. Likewise, we have the distinct opportunity to offer others a glimpse of the divine as we extend our had in friendship to them.


One of the subjects you are likely to see many musings about in the months to come is this subject of friendship. Whether it is the friendship between husband and wife, between girlfriends or between children, I believe our Lord really does reveal Himself through people. I now offer you "a glimpse" from my latest book Growing Friendships (Bethany House)...


"Friends invest time in one another's lives. They make the conscious choice to 'Go out and play.' They see friendship as an invitation from God to receive what He has for them."


I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)


Remember when you were a little girl and you would knock on your neighbors' door and ask "Can Mary come out and play?" As a child, you made the choice to go and knock on the door, allowing your girlfriend to then decide whether or not she was going to come out to play. Not much has changed over the years. This is still the first step when it comes to "Growing Friendships." It is making the choice to "go out and play," or, in other words to choose to value friendship and to invest the time and energy it takes to "connect."


There was a time in my life when I made the choice not to go out and play. My best friend was Nancy Drew and most week-ends I could be found holed up in my attic bedroom clutching those yellow bound books. I feel sad thinking about that little girl. She didn't know what she was missing. She didn't know that she could have more laughter, joy and company in her life. She didn't realize how lonely she was, nor did she realize that wounds of rejection had entered her heart and caused her to tuck herself away with a "safe" friend.


That safe friendship found between the pages of books continued on through junior high; my library card was paper thin from overuse, my battery stash running low from many late nights spent reading under the covers.


It wasn't until after my husband and I were married and had purchased our first home that I began to realize the potential that was available to me through friendships. At that point, I began to make the weekly choice to go out and play, and this continued for a long time.


For seven years, five of us gals met together on Monday evenings at a local restaurant, occasionally mixing it up when a good "chick flick" came to town. As I reminisce about the faces around the table those first few Monday nights, I see two friends with young children, two friends that were newly pregnant and one friend that was on the career track. We all had busy lives, yet we made the choice to meet and in doing so, learned the value of intentionally setting aside the time to invest in our friendships.


We spent those Mondays talking and listening to one another, laughing LOUD and crying hard, celebrating pregnancies and births, promotions, anniversaries, birthdays and the life that happens in between. We prayed each other through marriage challenges, work challenges, and hormone challenges, and we tried our best not to judge one another when we needed to "vent" about our children challenges.


Not every Monday was a party...there were some really hard Mondays in the mix. There were times when we needed to share feelings that weren't "pretty" and discuss topics that we were in disagreement over. There were times we "missed" each other and had to ask for forgiveness and there were times when we lost our temper and felt like giving up on friendship entirely. Still, by the grace of God, we chose to continue to "go out and play."


As a circle of friends, we made a huge investment of time in our relationship and the dividends were enormous. I can honestly say that that "Monday Night Lifeline" helped me in more ways than I am even now aware of. My girlfriends showed me what grace, forgiveness and loyalty were all about and they helped me enjoy the season of life that I was in.


Were there times in those years when we had other things we needed to do on a Monday night, like chores, work, or catch up on sleep? Of course! But friendship is a choice and there are many reasons why it is a choice worth making.