"Bold" Friendships

Have you ever had a friendship that was more work than fun?

No better best friends then your family

I will be the first to say that I have struggled making well-rounded friends! Growing up I wanted to "fit" in and it caused me to be in some toxic friendships. I would love to say that I have grown since my elementary/middle school years, but I would be lying. This is still an issue that I am dealing with today and it really sucks! As I have just now entered college I have taken the time to re-evaluate some older friendships and I have made some observations that were always so prevalent but I just now opened my eyes to.

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I was sitting at my favorite place: Church (CCV is such an awesome place I 10/10 recommend it if you live in the Phoenix valley) and as the marvelous Pastor Mark Moore was preaching I asked my mom for a pen so that I could jot down some notes. As I was rubbing the pen to paper, ink was not coming out... I continued to try and get the pen to work for a solid five minutes and it continued to not work. Eventually after the struggle, my friend offered me a different pen and it worked! You are probably wondering why in the world do I care about some pen troubles? Just hold on I promise this is going somewhere!

After that very minor incident it got me thinking about a long-term battle that I have been fighting with myself on certain friendships. I have friendships that I work so hard to keep strong, that is completely one-sided causing me to have to work instead of having a "teamwork" friendship where we could grow together. Like the pen, I spend so much time trying to get it to work out, that what I truly need to do is take a step back and maybe go a different direction and get a "pen" that works well with the paper and causes more of a teamwork dynamic.

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God wants us to be with people who we can grow from and help build His kingdom! He calls us to sharpen each other up as well as the world around us.

Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another"

Friendships aren't suppose to be one-sided. In fact that isn't a healthy friendship at all, but rather going against the design God wants for us as children of His. He wants us to display teamwork, sharpen each other, and grow His kingdom together.

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God sometimes puts friends in our path that compliment us perfectly, this is provided to us to help us do things that we couldn't do on our own. Moses and Aaron are a perfect example of how God uses friends in our life to display perfect teamwork to help benefit God's kingdom. Moses was a great leader for the Israelites in leading them towards freedom, however, he feared public speaking and struggled getting his point across in large masses. Therefore, Aaron stepped in and did all of the speeches to "help a fellow out." While being a strength to Moses' weakness, he also supported Moses through every step of the way. Good partnerships like that make healthy and perfect friendships. God knew that this would become a dynamic duo that is why He guided Moses to seek Aaron for help. God always knows what is best for us in strengthening certain areas of our lives. Everyone has different spiritual gifts to offer and we can benefit from them as well as our own. Strength comes in numbers!

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God puts people in our lives to help balance our weaknesses with their strengths and vice versa. It is our job to find those relationships and re-evaluate the one's that don't help us grow and is work rather than peace/joy.

Potential friendships are all around us we just need to be open to those possibilities and seek God's open doors for our lives. If the "pen" isn't working and making a bold mark in our lives and the lives of others then maybe it's time for you to try and seek a new "pen" and stop trying to make the older "pen" work out, because maybe it is a sign that there are better things out there for you to be invested into.

So what "pen" do you need to let go of? It's time to make a bolder friendship!

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Dear God,

Thank you so much for all you have done for your children. Thank you for loving us unconditionally and displaying that love to us when you sent your only Son to die for all of our sins. You are a good, good Father and I am so blessed to serve such an amazing Lord. God I pray that you can help us open our eyes to your open doors and the people around us you want us to be surrounded by. Give us the strength to drop the non-working pens in our lives and seek a stronger partnership that will help grow Your kingdom and balance out our weaknesses. I love you with all of my heart! It is in Jesus name that I pray.

AMEN!