I had a discouraging discussion with a friend this evening. He and his wife had been fairly close to my wife and I a couple of years ago. We were involved in their lives pretty deeply at that time. Back when our church had assigned ‘discipling’ relationships, we ‘discipled’ them. Since then, however, we have not been very involved in their lives.
\nThis has long been one of the rightful criticisms of our churches, although to be honest it’s a failure more of the individual<\/i> than the church. Too often these discipling relationships weren’t the real, loving relationships that they were meant to be. Don’t get me wrong, we genuinely cared about them, and still do. It’s just that when you are assigned someone to care about it’s much more difficult to develop the kind of relationship that transcends the assignment, one that will last, no matter what. Sometimes that happens, but many times once the discipling relationship changes, the relationship cools.
\nAnyway, my friend shared with me how he and his wife aren’t doing so well. She will sometimes disappear for days at a time, taking her son (from a prior marriage) with her. They don’t talk much because they can’t do so without arguing. We had talked with them about some of the issues he related to me some two years ago, trying to help them work through it. He shared, however, that nothing has changed in those two years. Two years had gone by and things hadn’t improved, but what concerned my was I hadn’t taken the time to follow up on their marriage in two years.<\/i> What kind of friend behaves this way? What kind of disciple<\/i> acts like that? This is not the kind of life that Jesus called us<\/strike> me to live.
\nThis is what Christianity is about. This is what should<\/i> make us different, that we love each other & we know each other deeply. We aren’t afraid to get in there and dig – in love<\/b> – and find out what’s going on, in fact we expect to have these kind of relationships. I had thought about him in those two years, even wondered how things were going. I had remembered those challenging talks with them in our living room, but I did nothing.<\/i> I believe that the Holy Spirit was prompting me to get in there again, a subtle warning that something was up, but I ignored it. I had too much to do. Perhaps there was nothing to be done, but as if to guarantee that I actually did nothing.
\nI have a challenge for you. Does this describe you too? Are you too distracted by life to get in there and love<\/i> those around you? Perhaps everyone around you, like my friend and his wife, seem happy and fine. Maybe they even say that they are, like he did. Are you willing to dig and find the truth? I bet there are several near you who are decidedly not<\/i> fine, but in fact are drowning. Will you dare to jump in and get dirty and wet trying to save them?
\nPraise God for repentance! I hope that my friend will be coming over tomorrow night to talk. I expressed to him my apologies for my lack of care. I told him that I was there when he needed me, no matter what. Now I just have to follow up on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"