Friends And Acquaintances?

Junior high/middle school basketball is always fun to play, and more fun to watch. These youngsters have acquired some skill—more or less—and it’s still more for fun than for competition. Oh, sure, we wanted to win, and few athletes that don’t want to win will ever get very far in any kind of organized sport. But, this was a special time for me.

I liked the “opening exercises”, or calisthenics, before practice, and the one-on-one of trying to get the ball in the basket. It’s never as easy as it looks so practice is important. Another good thing was the chance to visit other schools and, I freely admit, get out of class for a while! But we can feel good after each game—and I did (well, most of the time, anyway).

There’s one game I may never forget. Our junior high was playing against another in the area, and one of my friends from a former elementary school was on the other team. We had been pretty good friends a couple of years before, even having been in the same homeroom, so I figured he might remember me.

I asked one of the other team’s players if “Jim” (not his real name) was on their team. He said, “Sure, he’s over there, if you want to talk to him”. Did I ever! We had a couple of years of what we had done to catch up on, if I could only get his attention. Eventually, I got close enough to say, “Hey, Jim, it’s me (I gave my name), remember, we were both in Mrs. So-and-so’s class? Couple years ago. . . ?”

“Jim” looked at me, and said, “Oh, yeah, how’s it going? Hey, yeah, how you been? Listen, I gotta get out of this uniform, but it’s been great to see you”, and he disappeared. It’s clear he had no idea who I was, and I haven’t seen him in many years, to the best of my knowledge.

We have no such worries when it comes to our Heavenly Father! Not only does He know us, He calls us by name, and He wants to bless us in so many ways! We’ll never have to worry about our Father not remembering our names. For those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, our names are already on the Lamb’s “Book of Life”, never to be blotted out or forgotten. Paul even mentioned Clement and other fellow workers for the Lord whose names are in the book of life (Philippians 4:3, paraphrased).

True, time may blur the memories of friends or former acquaintances, and we might not remember the name of someone we’ve met. That fear or situation, I repeat, will never happen with God. He loves us more than we could think, and He will never forget us.

Guaranteed.