Celebrity or Friend

24

 

Me:  Prodigal, who are you with today?

 

Prodigal:  Mr.Lizard, he is a celebrity here on the beach.  All the animals know him.

 

Me:  How did you meet him then.

 

Prodigal:  I was walking the beach and just ran into him and had to say hello.

 

Me: Meeting a celebrity, imagine that.  That does lead me to the story today.  I will tell it to both of you.

 

Tommy Tenney in the book the God Chasers.  Talks about our relationship with God.  I liked how he explained it compared to our culture today.

 

You can know all about presidents, royalties, and celebrities; you can know their eating habits, address, and marital status.  But knowing about them doesn’t imply intimacy.  That doesn’t mean you know them.  In this information age, with tidbits of gossip passed from mouth to mouth, from paper to paper, and from person to person, it’s possible to traffic in facts about someone without knowing him personally.  Were you to overhear two people conversing about the latest calamity befalling some celebrity, or the latest victory he experienced, you might be led to think that they know that individual, when really all they know is facts about him!  For too long the Church has been only conversant in the things of God.  We talk techniques, but we don’t talk with Him.  That’s the difference between knowing someone and knowing about him.  Presidents, royalties, and celebrities-I may know many facts about them, but I don’t really know them.  If I ever met them in person, they would have to be introduced to me because mere knowledge about a person is not the same as an intimate friendship.

Have you ever had a close relationship or a close friendship where you could feel that they knew you?  Think of them now.  What made it special?  Was it that they knew you loved sports and you bake and whatever else you want to add in there.  That might have been part of it but there is more.  A lot of people know I like sports and that I love to bake.  They don’t have an intimate friendship with me though.  So what is that difference?

Spending time with each other of course.  I would like to add more though.  I think that the close intimacy in that relationship wants to encourage you with a closer relationship with God and given you freedom to walk your own walk.  See we can encourage that closer relationship but can sound like a list of to do’s and don’ts and no intimacy is present.

I have relationships where I see they encourage me through prayers and words and just being there.  I feel a genuine love behind their actions.  I value this so much.  So if little ole me could figure out if you have genuine love behind your actions, could God do the same?  If people are encouraging me, could God do the same for you?  Is God raging with anger if He knows you only have facts versus an intimacy with Him or is He ever so softly calling your name.  God has known all along.  He is not rejecting you because of it, he is just patiently waiting.

Psalm 139:1-5

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

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