Life. Faith. Jesus.

If fortune cookies were only true

I have recently been able to spend some time with a very good friend of mine. Me and this guy go back a while. We have taken a common interest in many activities and have enjoyed growing together in our friendship. This is one of those friendships that will not die—I pray it never will. The interesting thing about the time spent together recently, is that it centered around a tragedy. It was a tragedy he was dealing with, and still is. To my delight, he called me to come spend some time with him.

Without a doubt, I’m there.

We talked, I mostly listened. Now this is interesting, because I often want to offer solutions to problems, so God must have been acting in that place because I was able to just shut up for the most part—I think. Well, by me shutting up, he was able to talk. There was pain, there was emotion, there was uncertainty; but most of all, there was trust. He trusted me with every word that came out of his mouth. And he should be able to do this. There was no real solution I could offer; just affirmations and companionship. Even if I could conjure up some solution to his dilemma, it would not be worth anything at the time. The value in these moments are silence and acceptance.

This reminds me of Job’s experience with his friends. Job had some very terrible events transpire in a very, very short time span. He lost his family, he lost his home, he lost his farm, he lost his wife, he lost his health, he lost everything excluding his own life. After all this happened, his friends caught wind of the terrible situation and came to his side:

“11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.
12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.
13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” Job 2:11-12

Wow. I know these guys rattled off some unwise remarks toward Job, but I must admit this is pretty spectacular. I have NEVER sat for even ONE DAY straight just to be near a friend of mine. The MOST I’ve ever been “silent” for a friend was about TWO HOURS! I even thought that was long!

But what I learned yesterday is that these opportunities continue

Yes, opportunities. I hope I am trusted by others in times like this ALWAYS. What a blessing it was for me to be near my good friend in his time of need. We ended the night with some prayer. Today, that prayer was answered in an amazing way. God moved fast on this one. The wonderful thing for me is that I felt no desire to try to fix things, just being there for him was satisfying. I wished I could have made it all better, but I know the truth of the matter. I suppose you could say it was an honor for me to ache with him.

“A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24

Interesting words, eh? I am glad to have been at least something close to this proverb yesterday; I know he would for me. And we don’t do things just because we know the other person would do it for us, do we? No. Rather, we do them because we WANT to. After all, is this not what Jesus did for us. Did he not weep on our behalf? Did he not suffer on our behalf? Did he not undergo great amounts of stress on our behalf? Indeed, he did—even as far as death did Jesus undergo for us. How, then, ought we to treat each other?

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:10-12

Let us be near to those whom we care for and those whom care for us.



— Jonathan J.