Make Friends - Part 2

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos. Great Britain: Penguin Random House, 2018. Rule 3: Make Friends with People Who Want The Best For You pp. 75 - 83

Opening Thought: From where we left off, Peterson takes a winding road to make a bold claim. The zigzagging nature of these pages was not formed out of vanity, rather they were meant to open the readers to a wider consideration of the difficulty in having healthy relationships in their lives.

For people to move towards a better version of themselves, they must seek ideals. Ideals in themselves are both the goal, but also our judge against our efforts. The wise person will see the judgment within their goal, as a rubric of self-improvement. "Where I lack, is where I shall aim to improve on," says the hypothetical wise man. A high-school basketball player could look to the techniques employed by Lebron James, as his goal, but when the high-schooler fails to make the basket, the rubric of Lebron’s standard will press on him. If the teen wishes to become his best self in basketball he will continue to strive for the standard, even though the standard reveals where he is currently falling short. A successful version of him in the future is reliant on him not disregarding the dichotomy between where he is now and the standard present by Lebron. This logic applies to all avenues of skill in life. Business, Art, Scholarship, and our social lives. We are called to live towards a higher standard. Now the challenge becomes one of two things. One, most people when they first see the standard to which they would ideally like to achieve, become overwhelmed by the standard, and will either become resentful of those who are closer to the standard than they are, or they resent the standard itself. Many people will default to mediocrity rather than ‘give a damn’, because to ‘give and damn’ requires a lot of dedication, determination, and effort on the part of themselves. Second, people are social creatures, we cannot help for the most part but want other people to be with us, and on the same level as us. If we are destructive people who disregard ‘the standard’ or ‘ideals’ in the world, we will consciously or unconsciously sabotage those in our lives who show promise to the standard or ideal.

Thus, if we wish to progress in life, we must protect ourselves from these people. It doesn’t mean we remove people with these negative dispositions completely from our lives, but we must be mindful that it is a reality that can harm our ambitions and goals. We too could be these negative people and not realize it. Misery loves company as they say, and often we will drag others down, so their success doesn’t shine too bright of a light on our failures.

Opening Prayer: Loving God, you are the Ideal of ideals, the Standard of standards. We all fall short of your glory, but we are not called to abandon the pursuit of your glory. Rather, you sent Christ to walk with us, and show us His way, and remind us that even though we cannot do it perfectly, the effort in the pursuit shows our love for God and neighbor. Amen.

Scripture Brought to Mind: Revelation 19:16

On His robe and on His thigh, He has this name written: King of kings and Lord of lords.

Reflection: Nothing good in life ever comes easy. A true friendship for example is an exchange and agreement, which mostly goes unsaid, where each part provides a part of themselves to the deal shared interests, and willingness to be present for the other in times of both joy and sorrow. If both parties dedicate themselves mutually to the relationship it can be one of the most powerful bonds in human existence. The best of these relationships are ones that challenge each other, call each other out to rise to their full potentials. A true friend if they see you falling short of your ideal, of your goals, will ask you ‘why’ or “what’s the matter?’. A true friend if they see you falling to temptation will tell you to ‘knock it off’ or ask you ‘what on earth are you doing?’ The true friend holds us accountable to the highest standards because they know that we are our best selves in the pursuit of those standards.

Now, this does not mean that a friend expects perfection from you, nor should you of them. Rather, it means that there is a common pursuit towards goodness, but a fuller understanding of goodness which will also contain mercy, compassion, repentance, and forgiveness. Also, there would be no expectation for a friend to expect you to be in the pursuit of all skills and talents. Just because your friend decides one day to try out a game of checkers, doesn’t mean you suddenly have to rally the troops to make sure your friend pursues the ultimate goals of a professional checkers player. No one person will take on all avenues of life, we all are unique with different interests and gifts, the good friend will take the time to see those in the other and support those endeavors. And if there is a place where a person is lacking, and they are generally interested in improving in that area, the friend should aim to help them in the pursuit as well.

All in all, a friendship that looks to move towards betterment is the goal. However, many people default to the opposite. We are fallen creatures, after all, so it is with much sadness I admit that we are not very good at being the greatest friends to each other. But I do hope that anyone reading this will strive towards excellence in their friendship and also be mindful of those who are too detrimental to your wellness in both life and spiritual morality.

One more thought, there is the old hymn that says, “what a friend we have in Jesus”. I do believe that Jesus is inviting us into a friendship with him. However, this is not a casual friendship, based around frivolity. It is a friendship with the Ideal. Like Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. Christ is also the Friend of friends. And as we have already stated, a healthy friendship should call you toward improvement, towards a better version of yourself. It will not settle for improper behavior and neglected potential – rather it will shine a light on your shortcomings and extend a helping hand in the process. With Christ as a friend, we have the ultimate light shining upon us, exposing our weaknesses, but we also have the ultimate hand extended to us to lift us up, and the ultimate Ideal to continue to work towards.    

Continual Work: Think about Jesus as your friend and how he would help you to become your best self? Does that differ from the friend you have currently in your life? And how so? Also, do you feel like as a friend you are behaving in your friendships as Jesus would call you to do?

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I struggle with friendships. I have a few lifelong friends, but even in those relationships, time and distance seem to keep conversations far and few between. Even with the internet, and with communication being readily available, it always seems to be put on the back burner, so I aim to be a better friend going forward.

Prayer for your week: Lord, help us to be the kind of friend that Jesus has shown us to be, help us seek healthy friendships with others who aim to fulfill that Christ-like calling in their lives. And let us welcome Jesus to be our friend, because, well, what a friend we have in Jesus. Amen.

Artistic Close: Maybe the greatest pass time of friendships is coming together for a great meal. No surprise one of the staples of the faith is communion, breaking bread with your brothers and sisters in Christ.