Friends - On Purpose

I have a Facebook account ; it is fun to keep track of ‘friends’ and what they are up to. You add Friends that you want to be connected to or stay in contact with. In face it was a friend from New Mexico that convinced me to sign up for Facebook. It is an easy way for us to connect on a daily basis if we choose. In some aspects I think social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are also bad for relationships, if we don’t watch out our friendships will become casual.

Starting this weekend I will be attending church at our new 2nd campus and that means that I won’t be able to have our normal brief chat and hug each Sunday with some of my closest friends. I remember the night I told one of my friends that we wouldn’t be together on Sundays and she got mad at me. She felt as if I was abandoning her. My response to her was that it only meant that we had to be more intentional in our friendship and not just let it happen on Sundays.

I have some close friends that live in other parts of the country and I have to work at being On Purpose with those relationships because of the distance between us. I have friends that live within a few short miles of my house and it seems that I am don’t spend much more time with them than I do my long distant relationships. I can sometimes take them for granted.

Deliberate, planned, designed, purposed, intended, calculated, prearranged, premeditated. Are these words that describe your friendships or do you like most of us take them for granted? So what is a friend, per good old Webster they are person you know well and regard with affection and trust.

I continue to be On Purpose with my friends even in these busy times.

Prov 27:6; 17:17

Acceptance

Our granddaughter and I went swimming in the hotel pool. We were not in the pool more than a few minutes when she was playing with another little boy. It just didn’t matter that they had never met before the only thing that was important was that they were both in the pool and there were having fun.

It is just too bad that we all can’t stay a little child like when it comes to meeting new people. As we grow older we look at the people we meet and some that we have known for a long time and wonder what it is they want from us, when are they going to disappoint us, how soon before they hurt us. All of this tends to build up a wall that prevents others from getting in and from us to get out. We pull back from just enjoying being with people. We pull back to a place we think is protection and it is really a prison.

After about 5 minutes of playing in the pool the other boy’s dad comes out to the pool side. Katelynn swims over to the side of the pool and says, “I’m Katelynn, he’s my best friend.”