Alone With Our Friend

06/02/2007

Open for me the gates where the righteous enter, and I will go in and thank the Lord.
Those gates lead to the presence of the Lord, and the godly enter there.
I thank you for answering my prayer and saving me! Psalm 118:19-21 (NLT)

Most, if not all of us, will experience some life-changing events before we leave this earth. It might start with a phone call, a visit to the doctor, or even a kangaroo simply hopping along its way that causes our vehicle to swerve and overturn, leaving us paralyzed for life--as actually did happen to a friend of mine quite a few years back. Do we remember the day before these events, when life was moving along quite easily…and then, without warning, everything suddenly and radically changed?

Why would God want our broken and repentant heart in these times? Why would He not look upon it with displeasure? Why would He not be disappointed in what seems to be our failure, our weakness, our need? Because, God knows it’s in our greatest need, the deepest pit, the darkest hour, that we will find Him to be our Friend as never before—we’ll get to know Him in a way that we couldn’t even begin to comprehend on the day before.

We can go through our day, and we can pray prayers all along the way, but there are times when we must stop and just “be” with God, get alone with our Friend, and bring Him our sorrows and our sins, and find the healing and the forgiveness that allows us to continue on in this life… We find that God is our Best Friend when we spend time with Him. We can come to Him when we are hungry, when we are tired, when we have needs. We can come to Him when we have joy and are full of praises and are thankful. We can come to Him anytime, but we must come, and partake of His great offerings, or we miss out on so much. Too many times the food is there, God’s Truth, but we won’t swallow it. We may even get it in our mouths, we may even get a taste of it, but then we drop it and run. We won’t allow it to be the nourishment we need to give us the strength to continue on with the race of life.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ, when starving in the wilderness and tempted by Satan to turn the rocks into bread, said, “Man does not live by bread alone.” He knew of a food that was more satisfying than anything available on this earth. He knew what it did for His soul to be in the presence of His Father in Heaven. He set the example for all of us!

The choice is ours. But that choice is a huge privilege--and we must be responsible with it--we must continually choose to return to God, to seek His face, to come to know Him more and more. It is the best way to live this life, because the very One who created us designed it that way. He wants us to spend time with Him for a reason. He gave us His Word for a reason. He wants a relationship with us for a reason…because it is the one True Way. Every other way comes to us from the Tempter, the enemy, the one whose job it is to make us miserable. Let’s find our nourishment at the table of our Lord! It’s there that we will find true Love, true Friendship, and true Hope for all that is to come when the day before is long ago in our past.