Low on the Go!

i'll be your friend, even when you stand me up a million and a half times.


can we be honest here? who in their right mind would actually follow through on such a thing? this summer (and if i'm honest, even up to today) i really struggled in dealing with a particular friendship. i felt as though i had been constantly stood up by a friend, and that even though this friend claimed to want to spend time with me, she wasn't fully there whenever we tried to meet up. it was as though we had been friends so long that other people were more important because the underlying assumption was, i'd always be there. this is often akin to the way we treat our parents. by we, i mean me.

today, as i was talking to my brilliant friend j farq, who always makes devastatingly-heart- convicting-brilliant-filled-with-wisdom statements, i realized that this, again, is a pride thing! i felt as though i deserved this person's time and reciprocating affections. i felt as though this person had treated me/treats me unfairly, and i felt like rebelling; i felt like tossing in the towel and saying "this is over."

upon this realization, jesskah said something that cut like a knife to my heart. here's my attempt to relay her brilliance. it won't be half as good. but she said something to the effect of, "now imagine. this is what we do to God most of the time, and yet he still forgives us."

hmm. there's no pride in Jesus. like it says in Philippians 2, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be , but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

after she said that, i told her i was going to continue to ignore this conviction. you know me! pure rebelliousness.

but at dinner, what she said made sense. all of a sudden, knowing my own depravity, i was able to forgive what someone else had done to me. continuing on the last post's theme, as we understand our own depraved and rebellious state, and as we come to comprehend the power of the cross, we are changed moment by moment and freed from those things that so easily entangle us.