Re:Verse passage – Proverbs 27:17 (day four)
Never in my life have I seen friendship done better than in the FBCSA Single Adults Ministry. It became clear to me in my first week on staff – these folks take friendship as seriously as Scripture asks us to. They know that God designed for us to live in community and they make it a priority in their lives, even when it’s hard.
I was struck by this when I met them because so few people – both inside and outside of the church – place a high value on friendship. Throughout Scripture, it is clear that all people are called to live in relationship with others. For some of us that includes marriage or parenthood, but for all of us that includes friendship. Many of us, as C.S. Lewis says in The Four Loves, consider friendship to be “marginal; not a main course in life’s banquet; a diversion; something that fills up the chinks of one’s time.”
To view friendship this way is to completely ignore the irreplaceable role it has in our sanctification, our calling, and our understanding of God. Real, Biblical friendship keeps you walking through the narrow gate, it buoys your faith when doubt clouds your mind, it helps transform you into the likeness of Jesus. Regardless of what stage or station of life you’re in, you are in need of friendship in order to walk in the way of Jesus. How is the Spirit prompting you to grow in this way?
Hear! Hear! Not only have my friendships in general been crucial in bringing me back into and keeping me (mostly) in the narrow gate, but the most powerful of those friendships in my darkest days were – and many still are – with FBCSA Single Adults. Connie & I met among them and absolutely did grow in our “sanctification, our calling, and our understanding of God” among those saints. Praise God for FBCSA Singles – and your leadership of them!
My husband Bob & I met in FBCSA Singles Dept back in 1981 & married in 1983; & before he arrived on sight at church, I had a whole new group of all single friends in my own age group & thought if I never married that it was just going to be Jesus & me as long as my church friends were walking beside me as we searched for God’s Purpose in our lives & our community stayed strong & together seeking God!
And now almost 8 months after losing my husband to Heaven & his Paradise, and after 40 years of marriage, I’m finding myself surrounded by another group of dear friends in the church’s senior adult group who all pray for & support each other again in the community we all need as other’s spouses are going through similar life challenges as I did last year!
But again I feel not only drawn into our Senior Adult community but feel drawn back in a way to the Singles group & this time seeking a ‘Single..Again’ community!
Community & interpersonal relationships call out to me as I once again seek my Lord’s Will & Plan for my life moving forward but never
alone !