April 15, 2010

Having friends is nice, no doubt about that. You can hang out with them, talk with them, be yourself comfortably with them, and all that good stuff. But as brothers and sisters in Christ we are called to do more than just that aren't we. All of us have "friends who are agreeable, and we have friends who are more than agreeable. Don't get me wrong, its nice to agreed with sometimes, but it is amazing to be corrected.

A true friend is truely abitter-sweet thing. Bitter in the fact that a lot of times I must put aside my pride to accept some good advice, and on the rare occassion put aside personal comfort and fear to offer some myself. It's hard to do these things. And for the most part there is no easy way to do it, or comfortable feeling that I get from it. It is simply not pleasent. But Christ confronted sin, He bore our sin, He was shamed for us, He was beat for us, HIS OWN FATHER LET HIM DIE FOR ME! So the least I can do is try to emulate some form him, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it is.

But with such bitterness comes blessing. A sweet, sweet blessing. How good it is to know that I have friends that would go through such uncomfortable feelings to point something out. And know that when I screw up the courage to likewise point something out, that they will listen. It most certainly can be a sin that they point out, but sometimes it can be bringing something to the spotlight that might not be a sin but it would certainly be benificial to work on.

Thank you friend. For showing me a place for improvement. I look forward to working on it and trying to amend it. I look forward to a time when I can repay you in the same way. And I don't mean tha in the sense that I'm going to be scrutinizing every little thing you or any of my friends are doing to find places I can confront and correct in, that is not the spirit in which Christ or, I believe, you have confronted me in. It is rather a spirit of love, the kind that is selfless enough do such things graciosly and with love. Lately I have been realizing just how important this spirit of love is for the Church to posses, it is our bond that Christ sealed. I have come to see just how wonderful it is to be corrected and correcting in love. I encourage all who read this, it is our duty to do this, without it there might as well be no Church body, we might as well go live in the woods by ourselves with our lack of love.

What is comfortable is not always good,
What is good is not always comfortable,
But doing good, be it comfortable or not, is always a blessing.