friendships

Today I was doing a lot of thinking about friendships, and I came to the conclusion that they are hard. They are wonderful (don't get me wrong), but let's be honest they take work. Other than just the work required in maintaining a relationship, there's also the fact that friends will hurt your feelings/forget about you/etc. or you may have to watch them make bad decisions (which is also hard to do). You know you all have a friend who has to learn via the school of hard knocks instead of just heeding advice. That can be one of the most heartbreaking things, knowing that they don't have to be in the position they are in.. they are choosing to be there.

I was just talking to God about this and wondering why we were built wanting relationships with people even though we know that they will let us down. He reminded me that our deepest desire is for a relationship for a perfect Savior who will never fail us. But another thing that He spoke about was the fact that just like our friends hurt our feelings, I've hurt His feelings. I have decided that other things are more important, or decided that I'd rather talk to other friends. You know when you see some of you friends post facebook pictures of some fun time and realize that you weren't invited... remember that feeling? We do that to God all the time. Sometimes your friends didn't mean to neglect you, they just forgot to call. A lot of times we don't mean to neglect God, He just becomes an afterthought. ouch.

See with our relationships with our friends, it's man being friends with man. They are both fallen beings, and they are both going to fail each other. In most friendships, it ends up evening out. God never fails us and never will. We just abuse him. Take that in. Remember how it feels to be forgotten. Realize that God has feelings too.

Now take a moment and remember grace. Accept his grace and mercy and love for us regardless of our actions. This was just a good thing for me to remember today. I oftentimes forget that God has a heart too and feels things... which is a not good place to be in.