In the last few months, I have been going through a pretty rough season. I’ve been experiencing the anguish of not knowing my purpose in life. The confusion of thinking that quitting my job was the right move and then feeling the pinch financially and ultimately the guilt of my decision. So many days I sit on my couch numbing my emotions with the phone, TV, occasional book or whatever I can get my hands on.
I am hard on myself. Really hard. At the same time, I am hard on God. Where is He and why hasn’t He done anything? Then I go back to blaming myself for my failure. It really doesn’t stop, this cycle of disappointment and frustration.
While searching for a version of the hymn “For the Beauty Of The Earth” I stumbled across an album by Sara Groves titled Abide With Me. It instantly became a balm for my soul and spirit as I listened over and over. Her voice is melodic and the songs are simply beautiful and earnest with a mix of old and new favorites.
What struck me is how often the tracks reference the companionship of God and Jesus. It caused me to think of how I view my interactions with The Lord. Do I see Him as friend or something else?
Sometimes I get emails from my Credit Union asking me if I am getting every benefit I can from my account. Did I know I could get Life Insurance? Travel Insurance? Auto Loan? Etc. I think that at times, we view our relationship with Jesus as an account that we need to juice for every benefit. Sure, Jesus is a companion, but have you gotten healing, financial blessings or all of the extras from him? If not, you need to get on it.
In John 15 Jesus talks to his disciples about friendship. In John 15:14-15 Jesus says,
“You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you”.
This shows that Jesus has a simple criteria for friendship. Follow what he says. However, it seems we have a lot of demands on his friendship with us!
Our culture places so much value on visible success. We celebrate our Christian brothers and sisters that have flourished financially. We venerate the ones that belong to or pastor large churches and other conspicuous benchmarks. Because this is important to us, we hustle God for these things and leave little to no room for friendship. Then what we find is that when we feel that our prayers were not answered, He did not hold up His end of the bargain. With this framework, the relationship is useless and it makes walking away easier.
I think if we treated our friends here like that, we wouldn’t have very many. Yet, we feel comfortable leaving Jesus on the shelf until we need him for something. We don’t sing the songs of love and companionship with the same depth of feeling that we do the songs about what Jesus can do for us. We want Table Flipping Jesus, Healing Jesus, Financial Blessing Jesus, but never Friend Jesus. The one that sits with us. Listens to us. Comforts us. One that WE listen to and WE sit with.
I realized that the Jesus I was inviting into my spiritual walk was only the version of him that answered my prayers and did what I wanted him to. Not the friend, I only wanted Hustle Jesus. The guy that I can squeeze every benefit from. This is why I was disappointed in God. He didn’t fit the small space I gave Him. He didn’t just stick around to take orders and get on His way. My bad relationship was my fault, not His. So, I wanted to fix it.
I still pray and I still talk to Jesus. But now, I also get quiet and let Him talk to me. I don’t just pray when I need Him to do something. I pray when I want to talk. I also let Him know I am available to just listen. We have a conversations full of give and take, laughter and tears. Like I have with my friends.
I don’t have it all figured out, but I am getting there and my friend is helping me.
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