Ideal Friends as Idols – Friendship Myths #9 – Purity 1341
Purity 1341 05/02/2024 Purity Podcast 1341
Purity 1341 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun blazing over the cracked asphalt stretch of Waite Road just east of my countryside home in Easton comes to us from yours truly as I captured this peaceful moment yesterday afternoon on the way back from taking my canine friend Harley out for his walk.
Well, It’s Thursday and my relationship with Harley is a little complicated. You see before getting together with TammyLyn, I hadn’t had a dog in my life since my beloved childhood beagle, Genny, died while I was away at my freshman year in college. Genny was my first and really only dog in my life. She was the family dog, granted, but she was with us from the time I was in first grade all the way to that first year away from home. She died of old age, and I would be lying if I told you I regret not being with her to see her go. I was glad I was away. I was glad I didn’t have to see her die but even though I was three and half hours away from home the pain of her loss still weighed heavily on my heart and caused me to weep. Since then my parents have gotten other dogs, but I never considered any of them mine.
My ex had cats and I fell in love with her cats and even though we considered getting a dog once we never did get one and I was fine with that. Dogs are high maintenance – needy and never leave you alone and after so many years without a dog, I still don’t have a desire to own one.
And then TammyLyn and her 4 pets household (3 cats and 1 dog). The day I met Harley, I was annoyed because he was almost wild and clearly undisciplined – jumping, barking, and whining when he met me. I was so annoyed with Harley in the beginning that I told TammyLyn, rather forcefully, “I’m not some guy who is going to be walking your dog…” Harley, of course, is not TammyLyn’s dog – Harley is actually a border. He belongs to TammyLyn’s daughter Rachel who is away serving in Japan with the United States Marine Corp, and she is taking care of Harley until Rachel returns. So I was perhaps even more annoyed that this unruly mut was “not even supposed to be there.”
But as I surrendered to my love for TammyLyn, my heart softened toward Harley and now I am good friends with him and actually enjoy the fact that he is now conditioned to being walked with me. The joys of Freedom Road wouldn’t have been known if not for Harley and the wondrous sights and experiences I have had up and down Waite Road at various times and seasons wouldn’t have been had if it was just up to me to go for a walk on my own. So I’m grateful for Harley and have “trained” him to walk with me “off leash” all the time now. However, he is still a dog and on occasion he will destroy my trust in him by running off unseen or will roll around in filth. So our friendship is good but not ideal.
And that long segway, brings us to our current series about friendship myths and today’s myth which was highlighted in a 2022 Psychology Today article (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-the-generations/202202/8-destructive-beliefs-about-friendship) by Sarah Epstein on destructive beliefs we can have about friendship. Epstein presents our next myth to be debunk as:
“There is an ideal type of friendship.” Her commentary states:
“Friendships come in many different forms. Some begin in childhood and continue through life. Others last for a summer at summer camp. Some friendships are extremely close while others exist largely in shared social circles. We may find that we gravitate towards certain people for certain types of friendship and like a variety of types. Others prefer only closer knit or more casual connections. There is no perfect model for maintaining friendships as long as it works for you.”
Perfectionism is something that we inherently know that we can’t accomplish and yet we can hold certain ideals and impose them on others or how we perceive the world. The problem is when we hold ideals that don’t match up with the reality of our lives, we can suffer disappointment and disharmony in the good but less than perfect relationships we do have.
If we are pining away for the “one true friend”, we run the risk of being discontent to the friends we do have and could possibly lose them because we are looking for something better than what we have, ironically revealing to others that we are not an ideal friend – shots fired!
Just like having ideals about “the one” in romantic relationships, we can cause ourselves undue pain and suffering in the realm of friendship. But the big problem with these “fulfilling relationship ideals” is that in developing the ideal we are unwittingly looking for love and fulfillment in all the wrong places. Instead of being fulfilled with our relationship with God and our identity in Christ, we make idols of the perfect human relationships. Instead of seeking the only thing that will give us meaning and purpose, we believe the world’s lies that we don’t need God to be fulfilled – we need the perfect “friend” who will love and understand us and never leave us or forsake us. The only problem is that no matter how dear or loyal the friends we have are they can’t “complete us”. Only God and being a friend to Jesus can do that.
So instead of being on the search for the “one” in terms of friendship, appreciate the friends you do have. You can always look for and form new friendships of course but we shouldn’t disdain what relationships we have thinking we will find fulfillment elsewhere. The truth is that we will only be fulfilled in Christ and beyond that we might want to be friends with the people we will spend eternity with Christians, but we should also be friendly to non-believers and introduce them to the perfect friend they could have in Jesus.
So let go of ideals about the things of this world satisfying you, even relationships, and appreciate the things you have now and be content, because in Christ we have all we need, and we can make friends that last for all of eternity when all come together with Him.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
Today’s Bible verse come to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
( While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Death and Eternal Life
Matthew 25:31-46 (NASB)
31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?
38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’
40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’
44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’
45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Today’s verses fall under the twentieth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Death and Eternal Life.
20. When Jesus comes again, he will separate the sheep from the goats.
Today’s verses are Jesus’ long discourse on how to treat the world, with kindness, and how our allegiance to Him will be the only thing that keeps us from hell. Here Jesus makes a case for the authenticity of our faith – that we will actually follow Jesus in the way we live by being like him in the way we treat others. If we say we believe, and our hearts are cold toward others, we may one day be exposed as a false convert and separated with the goats instead of being safe with the Good Shepherd and the sheep.
God wants us to be like him, holy, and if we are unchanged after we put our faith in Jesus, we should worry. God calls us to be salt and light, to obey his commandments, and to love one another. If that hasn’t happened to you, you may want to say that sinner’s prayer again and look up “repentance” and sanctification and pray for the Lord to change you and actually make efforts to walk in His ways. Nobody likes a hypocrite and the costs for being a phony or surface Christian is too high and too painful for anyone to have to pay.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own private study and to support his work. This resource is available online for less than $10 at many sites.
MORNING READING: ACTS 12
“He … did not know that what was done
by the angel was real.” – Acts 12:9
It is no doubt significant that on the three occasions Peter is recorded as sleeping, the phrase “He did not know” also occurs:
Mark 9:6 – “He did not know what to say.” On this occasion, Peter and the other two disciples were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke says, “Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep; and when they were fully awake, they saw His glory” (Luke 9:32). He slept but awakened to see the Lord’s Great Glory. Mark 14:40 – “[Peter] did not know what to answer Him.” Here again, Peter is sleeping. This time it is in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Peter witnesses the sorrow of Christ. He slept but awakened to see the Lord’s Great Grace. Acts 12:9 – “[Peter] did not know that what was done by the angel was real.” Peter is now in prison. He sleeps. The angel of the Lord delivers him out of the hand of Herod. He slept but awakened to see the Lord’s Great Goodness.
Lord, help me to be vigilant and not sluggish
so that I might witness Your great works.[1]
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1] Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).
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