A Curious Girl: A friend like that

Wee-ell, I promised to talk about Jesus's friendship. I think I like walking so much because of the thoughts (and strange songs) I think up on the way. (Look at Father's Love Letter in the Links, if this bores you to tears. It's prettier than this is for a starter :-) )

Anyway, Jesus is the kind of friend who doesn't care what religion you are. That's a starter. He'd talk to Samaritans (big no-no!) and tell the Pharisees to go learn what "I want kindness more than animal sacrifices" meant. He's not interested in anything that isn't good for your well being. So although he won't take 'I'm eating all this chocolate for God', he also isn't going to put up with 'You have to Church twice every Sunday and not eat meat on Fridays.' He'd only care about you doing that if in doing so you learned more of God and didn't neglect what's most important. Rituals just aren't the thing. He hates people making a big show of 'religion' when they're making very little show of God. He even approved a Roman's faith and yet exposes the Pharisees for their lack of faith. Interesting, no?

He's also a forgiving friend. I was going to leave this until last but I can't wait until then :-) If we do silly things like pretend we don't know him, or don't do what we know to be right, then if we come back repentent (ie. sorry) he'll be happy to see us. No rejections. Just like the Prodigal Son (can't spell that word! Just made about five attempts to do so!) in Luke 15:11-32. If we're willing to let him make a better go of our lives, then he's willing.

Okaaaaay, next on my list? That I didn't actully make? Oh yes. He's not the type to judge by appearances. Not one for posh clothes, and even touches people with diseases, considered 'unclean'. I guess that'd be like making friends with someone that our friends had snubbed - or society even. In the Bible there are so many cases of him showing love to the kind of people we'd probably just ignore. Even the demon-possessed - I don't think we see obvious cases of possession these days, but there is tons of stigma surrounding mentally-ill people (I have loads of psychology stuff going on about how in the past people thought this was possession); it's probably the worst state to be in, and yet so little love seems to be shown to these people - it's difficult, I know from attempting to serve tea to old ladies over ninety, but they're human too. A simple case of depression is met with rejection from lots of people - a friend of mine ran away from home once and when we heard she was back, I heard one of her friends say, "I'm not going to talk to her when she comes back." I see lots of insecure people being made more insecure and it really annoys me. But Jesus isn't like that. He doesn't even care how old you are - babe in arms or ancient. What does it matter?

He's a friend who gives, and wants others to do the same. Turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile. He feeds hungry people.

He's a friend who died for us. He'd take countless beatings and excruciating pain (and notice the 'cruci' in excruciating - wonder where it comes from?) just for our sakes. Unfathomable.

I woud love to be a friend like that - to love without condition no matter what, and to give all I can to my friends.

This little exercise also reminded me of the song 'What a friend we have in Jesus.' What's weird is that when I first sang that song in Church, I thought it was much newer than it actually was - the words can be a bit archaic, but it seemed so relevant to me that I couldn't believe it had warranted a place in the Baptist Hymn Book. Much better than the kind of thing we used to sing at primary school - half the time I didn't understand the words, or else they all seemed to be songs about plants and animals, or else they described a life so different from mine it scarcely seemed to apply. Much as I liked all those funny songs about how flowers are wonderful and God created lots of animals (well, most of them, count 'All things bright and beautiful' out), ironically my appreciation for them has increased a lot since then simply because I now know the God they said made all those things. And talking to him is cool. No, it's not. It's awesome.

Random word for today:

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