Friend Day

Sunday was Friend Day at church. An easy and comfortable way to invite your friends. Free breakfast, who doesn’t like a free breakfast? Then if you get them to come the week before Easter, maybe just maybe you can get them to come back on Easter also. Then two weeks in a row, and they are on their way to forming a new habit.

Friends. They can lead you down the wrong road or set you on the right path.

I have been fortunate in my life to have met a lot of people that I would consider as friends. Some I have stayed in contact with and many I have lost touch with. Facebook is a great way to reconnet with old friends from your past.

I have been fortunate to have three really close friends over the years. All of whom are still in my life today. Each one had a season specific to a time in my life, but all are still very important to me.

One rode ten miles on her bike one time just to check on me, because I was upset about something. She checked on me, talked me through my issue, then rode 10 miles back home. One came to my work one day when I was facing a crisis in my life. She sat in my car and cried with me, and prayed with me. One knows all the secrets of my life and still loves me anyway.

Those are signs of a true friend, someone who goes out of their way to see that you are alright, someone who feels your pain with you, and someone who knows you but loves you anyway.

You might say, I am lucky I have friends like that. Or you might say, I wish I had friends like that. We all have a friend like that. Jesus is that friend.

Luke 12:7 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

That friend who rode her bike out to my house she cared enough to come check on me. She didn’t just call, she went above and beyond. Jesus layed down his life for me. You can’t go more above and beyond than that.

Psalm 56:8 “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”

That friend who cared enough to come to work and cry with me, she felt my pain. She crawled into my sorrow with me for weeks. This verse tells us that Jesus collects all our tears, and records them. He feels our pain and hurts with us.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

That friend that knows all my bad and still loves me, she didn’t know it all up front. A lot of it she learned over the years. Years where she had already grown to love me, but God send his son Jesus to die for me already knowing all my sins and knowing all my bad. He knew it all up front and still loved me enough to send his son to die for me.

So, when you think you are all alone and don’t have a friend in the world. Remember that Jesus is a friend at all times, in all circumstances and He loves you.