I'm so blessed and have such amazing friends. Allow me to share the awesomeness of God and the faithfulness of three of these people in their "Yes" to Him...
Michelle and Josh are very similar... quieter people, more reserved, laidback, easygoing.. give great preference to small group settings, familiarity, etc.
Susan is a bit more outgoing but very much enjoys being around her "home area"...
Michelle spent two years in Italy as a missionary...
Josh spends several weeks or months each year in Cambodia as a missionary...
Susan left in August to go to Mali (West Africa) for two years as a missionary...
These are three of my oldest and dearest friends in the world and I have so much respect and admiration for them. So often I hear people say, and I have said, "wherever You lead me, Lord, I will follow"... and yet I know of so many, myself included at times, who, when push comes to shove, don't follow the Lord's leading. Of course I'm not talking specifically about going to another country and doing missions. I'm just speaking in general terms... God prompting us to talk to a friend about Him... Choosing whether to be honest about something and get in trouble or lie and stay "safe"... ending a relationship or friendship that you know isn't right and dealing with the pain and loss or staying together out of fear, loneliness, dependency on another person... or going overseas or into full-time ministry. I admire these friends for living out the faith they profess... for saying "yes" to God and following through with their actions. So often we say things to God that are simply empty words.. or promises that we hope we never have to follow through on but sound pretty at the time... HONESTY... with ourselves.. with our friends.. with our Lord. That's what we need.. Poor Rich Folk (awesome band.. thanks Warren!) wrote a song, 'Leaves Like Eve's".. the bridge states,
"I'm not broken and I'm not breaking
My eyes are open and I stand naked
I'm not overwhelmed, I'm not consumed,
I'm not all these things that I say to you...
'Cause I lie to you."
That's honesty.. brutal.. harsh.. difficult to say.. but honest. And it's how I've felt before... so often I find myself midstanza of a song in church and stop and say "What in the world am I even singing?! Do I really mean that?!"
May we, May I, stop lying to God. May we fall on our faces and be honest with our Father and our Creator and cry out truth from our hearts. May we not simply sing/speak/pray nice, pretty sounding words because we know that's what God wants to hear and because that's how we THINK we should feel. May our prayers always be honest.. may we always be honest with ourselves and with one another about our struggles, our sinfulness, our anguish, our "dark nights"... may we stop sugar-coating our faith and get real with God and one another. May we be as willing to follow up our words with our actions as my three, highly cherished friends have done.
I'm tired of being so shallow....
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