Continuing our focus on Becoming Friends with God.
> This morning I want to consider the value of our longings… and how they can connect us to
God.
Want to begin with a conversation I had last week…Conversation with a woman whose is a
fellow parent in my son’s football league… and who I had also met briefly before… because
her older son and my older son attend the same school.
We began talking about schools…as parents often do. She expressed the value in learning itself…
and then mentioned that she wanted to take a comparative religions class or something… to help
figure out what she may really believe.
Said her ex-husband quite antagonistic. I suggested likely a reason… perhaps something
threatening… She hardly needed much thought to see how deeply he held to control… and self
absorbed.
It was a picture of how longings can be fought or followed.
Asked why she thinks there is more. She said… good question.
Do you long for anything that has no corresponding reality.
I simply encouraged her that if she longs for the transcendent… she is likely on the right track.
As C.S Lewis wrote to a friend who expressed a desire to seek God…
“Continue seeking Him with seriousness. Unless he wanted you, you would not be wanting
Him.” (C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis, 13 June 1951, p. 233)
Such a conversation was a reminder that everyone is on a journey…
This morning I want to encourage us with the same truth.
Consider your own longings for friendship…. and what God has revealed of Himself.
Naturally many of us initially have a hard time thinking of God in the nature of a fiend. There
may be a number of reasons… but is the simple fact that his nature is not bodily.
So how good of a friend can God be?
Great.
• His doesn’t hare our human form… but He seems to recognize that difference. After
creating humanity… God said ‘not good that man be alone’… created a human partner
with the capacity to further create human bodily lives together. So he understands and
values our need for human bodied friends. He doesn’t imply that He is a substitute for
human friendship.
• But God knows that our nature is not simply bodily itself. We are spiritual. Relating to the
transcendent is every bit as much a part of our human nature.
What I want us not to miss is this.
We tend to think God can’t really be a friend in the ways we long for. But
actually He is the only friend who can.
Consider with me what you really long for in a friend… and what God has revealed of Himself.
I wrote down some thoughts this week and want to share with you what I see. Nothing new but
perhaps needed to be kept before us.
The nature of friendship which can be experienced most deeply in God
1. We long for a friend who really knows all we’ve been through and
“understands us.” (Understanding)
Each of us is the integration of a vast amount of experiences… especially those of our formative
years. This is why I believe that a deep and difficult crossroads is felt when a parent passes on. They
are one of the only reference points for our lives. Most of our lives go forward through transitions of
various places we live and people we know… and the natural result is that people know us only in
part. When a parent passes from our life we naturally feel we have lost the one of the only people
who have known us from the beginning…. who can understand the most formative part of us… and
who, at least ideally, we have a belonging that transcends the circumstances of life.
The reality may be that we haven’t felt that connected or understood by our parents throughout
much of our lives… but when they pass… we feel the ideal… the hope… disappear.
The truth is that no human life has shared even close to even half the experiences we have
had… nor can they really understand how they were experienced. The truth is that WE haven’t
even grasped all of what we have experienced clearly.
This can present the great existentialist crisis.
• How real is life if never really shared and experienced and validated by another?
• If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
• Or the similar question (jokingly) "If a Man Speaks in the Forest and There Is No Woman
Around to Hear Him – Is He Still Wrong?"
God is the only One who has seen and shared every experience you have had…
and with even far greater perspective.
God has declared not only that he transcends time and space… but that he is watching.
He has known you since before you were born.
Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart….”
(cf. Psalm 139:13-18)
If you’ve found it difficult to recognize that you were planned, that you are known, and that
you’re wanted… God wants you to know…YOU ARE MEANT TO BE HERE.
He has not only seen every experience… but he has seen them more clearly than any person ever
could. He has seen the big picture of circumstances… and he has seen what was in the inner world
of those involved. It’s the encounter with love that humanizes us….makes us real.
2. We long for a friend who is “always there for us” when we need help.
(Unlimited)
Perhaps our deepest fear is that of being truly alone… disconnected.
Dallas Willard describes this aspect of life quite profoundly…
CIRCLES OF SUFFICIENCY
“The natural condition of life for human beings is one of reciprocal rootedness in others. As
firmness of footing is a condition of walking and secure movement, so assurance of others being for
us is the condition of stable, healthy living. There are many ways this can be present in individual
cases, but it must be there. If it is not, we are but walking wounded, our life more or less a shambles
until we die.
These circles of sufficiency, natural and essential to the human condition and so profoundly
beautiful to behold, are always illusory; at the merely human level, and even the illusion itself is
terrifyingly fragile. To assure an anxious child we may say, "Everything is okay now." But it never
is. In this world it is never true that everything is okay, and perhaps it is least true in those very
situations where we feel the need to say it. Every human circle presupposes for its "really being
okay" a larger context or circle that supports it. The mother and child, for example, presuppose the
larger family that cares for and sustains them, making it possible for them to be absorbed in one
another as they need to be, ignoring all else. These larger circles also depend upon yet larger circles,
which, while ever less intimate, are still crucial to making the inner circles possible. That is just how
human life is.
Ultimately, every human circle is doomed to dissolution if it is not caught up in the life of
the only genuinely self-sufficient circle of sufficiency, that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For
that circle is the only one that is truly and totally self-sufficient. And all the broken circles must
ultimately find their healing there, if anywhere. - Dallas Willard
We say that a friend is someone who is always there for us… especially when we need them. Of
course we would have to qualify that expectation in regards to any human friend... but not God. He
is always present… the presence that can be discovered when we feel most alone.
I’d like to read a prose I was recently sent…
’MEET ME IN THE STAIRWELL’
You say you will never forget where you were when
you heard the news On September 11, 2001.
Neither will I.
I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room
with a man who called his wife to say ’Good-Bye.’ I
held his fingers steady as he dialed. I gave him the
peace to say, ’Honey, I am not going to make it, but it
is OK..I am ready to go.’
I was with his wife when he called as she fed
breakfast to their children. I held her up as she
tried to understand his words and as she realized
he wasn’t coming home that night.
I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor when a
woman cried out to Me for help. ’I have been
knocking on the door of your heart for 50 years!’ I said.
’Of course I will show you the way home - only
believe in Me now.’
I was at the base of the building with the Priest
ministering to the injured and devastated souls.
I took him home to tend to his Flock in Heaven. He
heard my voice and answered.
I was on all four of those planes, in every seat,
with every prayer. I was with the crew as they
were overtaken. I was in the very hearts of the
believers there, comforting and assuring them that their
faith has saved them.
I was in Texas , Virginia , California , Michigan , Afghanistan .
I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news.
Did you sense Me?
I want you to know that I saw every face. I knew
every name - though not all know Me. Some met Me
for the first time on the 86th floor.
Some sought Me with their last breath.
Some couldn’t hear Me calling to them through the
smoke and flames; ’Come to Me... this way... take
my hand.’ Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me.
But, I was there.
I did not place you in the Tower that day. You
may not know why, but I do. However, if you were
there in that explosive moment in time, would you have
reached for Me?
Sept. 11, 2001, was not the end of the journey
for you. But someday your journey will end. And I
will be there for you as well. Seek Me now while I may
be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are
’ready to go.’
I will be in the stairwell of your final moments.
God is the only One who is neither bound by physical limits nor personal needs.
3. We long for a friend who “believes in us”… who knows and enables our
potential. (Unaffected by our past and present failures)
Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in
your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are.
God is the only One who knows the true Divine image we bear…. and the
destiny we hold.
How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me,
if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?
4. We long for a friend who is ‘gracious and forgiving.” (Uncondemning)
Neither compromising… nor condemning
We long for someone who embodies goodness but extends graciousness.
Daniel 9:9
“
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.”
Psalms 103:12 (GW)
“
As far as the east is from the west— that is how far he has removed our rebellious acts from
himself.”
God is the only One whose very nature is both just and merciful.
5. We long for a friend who “engages us honestly but respects our freedom.”
(Uncontrolling)
A good friend is willing to be honest with us… even if it’s hard… but without a need to control us.
A good friend says, “I’m concerned with something I see or sense in your life.”… regardless of
whether they will gain anything from engaging you… in fact… even when they will likely face
resistance and resentment. This may be one of the hardest qualities to develop in a friend. The truth
is that there is no human life that is free from relating apart from their own needs. We should all do
our best to ‘think of the interests of others more highly than ourselves.’
Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD.
Doesn’t God command us? Yes… as rightly he should… but he doesn’t control us… in terms of
removing freedom.
God is the only One who is sovereign and has no need to operate out of self-
serving control.
6. We long for a friend who is “personal but not isolating.” (Unstifling)
Show me a relationship that becomes self-absorbed and I’ll show you the slow death of a soul.
When lives attempt to consume another… they will actually become smaller… and eventually
starve to death.
What we long for is a being that can know us personally… relate to us uniquely… but also help us
discover and develop our connection to the larger world.
God is the only One that connects us as personal individuals to the greater
universal community and cause that we were meant to share in.
When I ‘met’ Jesus… I felt an intimacy like I’d never known… but I also felt like I just
connected to the world in a new way.
God places us in a new community
• United uniquely in Himself as family (He is the common ground of community… as family.)
• Unconditional in it’s regard (Not based on our merits)
• Unending
