Friendliness

The Lord is teaching me about friendliness.

A few posts back, I mentioned our struggle to meet people at a new church. It has been good for me to think, discuss and pray about this. The Lord is so faithful to teach me new things. I am such a poor student....

These are some of the things I am learning:

1. I have to be a friend to make a friend. This one is tough for me. I am just not a pursuer. It's not so much an issue of shyness. It's more thinking along the lines of "I am not that great. Why would they want to be my friend?" I hesitate to call it an "esteem issue" because I am not sure if I believe in what is traditionally called self esteem. Maybe an insecurity issue is a better description. I make friends easily but there are few relationships that go beyond casual friendliness. Only a handful are the types of friendships where I can be transparent, confessing my weaknesses and admitting I need help and prayer. But I want more of these....so I am praying that the Lord would make me a pursuer of people.

2. Friendliness and/or friendships take time and do not happen overnight...or in 8 weeks....or on any timetable I might happen to have in my head.

3. Maybe the Lord wants to be my friend. Maybe this is a time that He is redeeming for Himself. I need to nurture my relationship with Him and this is the time and opportunity to do so. As a busy mom who wants to do everything perfectly, something has to give and that something is usually my time with the Lord. Uuughhh.

4. I am thankful for my friends that can encourage and rebuke me gently with the Word.

So those are my thoughts today.

Less of me....more of You.