I Am A Friend of God

Ever since the fourth grade I have had a best friend. Her name is Allison. Allison has made a huge impact on where I stand with my faith today. She invited me and took me to church for the first time in my life, showed me what it truly means to be Christ’s example, and went on our very first missions trip to Michigan together.

There are countless stories I could tell you of the two of us. Every year during the Maple Festival we would volunteer at a pancake breakfast together. She was with me on my first roller coaster at Cedar Point. We played the clarinet together in band. We have a dozen nicknames for each other. We call each other’s parents “mom” and “dad”. We were on our very first worship team together. She’s been there for me in my biggest sufferings and struggles; as I am for her.

We are now working on year eleven of our amazing, God-given friendship. We graduated high school together two years ago and now attend separate colleges. While it may seem difficult for two people to stay such close friends while being so far apart, our friendship has only gotten stronger through it all.

Allison and I did not get through ten years of friendship by doing nothing. In fact, it was really difficult at times. It seemed at one point in high school our lives were so busy that we didn’t have time for each other, but we always managed to make our friendship a priority;  to do things like serve at the pancake breakfast each year. We went through a lot of difficult times together, but we always forgave each other when we made mistakes and God was faithful to bring us through. Now, we continue to enjoy this friendship eleven years later!

During the month of February, Pastor Aaron has been talking about “Awesome Relationships”. This past week, Pastor preached on the most important relationship of them all: our relationship with Jesus. Now, I didn’t just go on a rant about my best friend for nothing. You see, Jesus desires to have that kind of relationship with us.

Jesus calls us His friend. He is not only our God, but our friend. Picture it: you are part of the inner circle of Jesus! He wants to know your thoughts, your desires, your heartbreaks. He wants to have conversation with you, to go through the hard times in life with you, and to be there for you to lean on. Not only that, He’s ready to share His secrets with you! Can you imagine that?! The God who spoke light into existence wants to reveal the hidden things of God to you!

Sometimes it is hard for us to think of Jesus as a friend. How could the Creator of the world, the One and only Son, Jesus Christ, want to be my friend? I am just a human and Jesus is so immortal. Yet He still desires that type of relationship with us.

Why? Because friends are close to each other. Friends tell each other everything. Friends do things together… like shop, watch movies, and eat. Jesus wants that kind of relationship with us but on such a grandeur scale. He wants to spend time with us and be a part of our lives. Now if that isn’t an awesome relationship, then I don’t know what is.

Similarly, to my friendship with Allison, Jesus wants to impact our lives in ways we never thought possible. If I can be honest with myself (and Allison has forgiven me for this), I used to think of Allison as the “goody-two-shoes” Christian girl. I never thought I would be the “type” of person to believe in God and go to church. It’s funny how God placed Allison in my life to get a hold of my heart and ultimately place a call on my life for missions.

Friends, Jesus cannot have an impact on your life unless you let Him in. Relationships are a two-way street. You cannot just ask Jesus to be your friend and not do your share. I want to invite you to take your relationship with Jesus deeper. Allow Him to be your best friend – the one you tell everything to before anyone else, the one you go to for advice during adversity and good seasons, the one you connect the best with!

In the final message of this series, Pastor Aaron gives us some practical ways to take this next step towards a friendship with God. I would like to encourage you to check out our podcast http://painesvilleag.com/awesome-relationships-2 and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you on how you can grow deeper with Jesus.

Allison is my best friend here on earth, but Jesus now takes precedence over that friendship. Are you willing to do the same in your life? Declare it, “I am a friend of God”.

Jenny Bushnell,
Blogger, Writer, College Student

One of Life’s Greatest Dynamics!

As a social work major family is something that I am learning a lot about. Whether it be definitions of the family, functions, roles and responsibilities, or my personal favorite, rituals of the family. Family is one of the major subjects to this field of study. It is so important because most of what social workers do relates to the family in one way or another. It could be working on a case to keep a family together, it could be counseling a family, or it could be tracking what has happened in a family to see if it is relevant to current things happening. The possibilities are endless!

When I think about my family, I can’t help but smile, and maybe even giggle a bit. While my family can be pretty serious, my family values joy and laughter as the main source of interaction. There is never a dull moment when we are all together. Because of that, as I am now in college away from my family, it has been brought to my attention by my friends at school that I am always laughing and cracking jokes. I mean, my mid-week stress breakdown is usually a laugh attack!  But I was not just born this way; as a giggly person (my parents may disagree). I learned to value fun through my family. Family is a place where we learn our values.

My point in talking about families, however, is not to bore you with all of the information I am learning in my social work classes, rather it is to talk about the importance of how families are a blessing from God.

We can see throughout the whole of Scripture that families are everywhere. Starting in Genesis there is Adam and Eve with their family, Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac. Then there is Jacob’s family… with Joseph being his favorite son and Joseph’s twelve brothers. Skipping ahead we can see in Job that the adversary, Satan, took away Job’s family. Skipping even further ahead to the New Testament, Jesus is born into the family of Mary and Joseph. John the Baptist is born into the family of Elizabeth and Zachariah. Finally, Paul shares in the book of Romans that we are adopted into God’s family and are called His children (Romans 8).

Families are a God-given gift that help shape us throughout our entire lifetime. While all of our definitions of family may be different and look different, it is still an important relationship in life. In fact, they can be Awesome Relationships! Family teaches us how to laugh and have fun. Family allows us to grow through trials and hard times, yet still come out loving one another. Family teaches us how to respond to the things of this world.

My family has helped me grow into the person I am today. They have supported me through the good decisions and the bad, through the tough times and the good times, and have always been there for me. Most of the memories I have as a child come from being with my family. I remember countless family vacations and other fun memories from the different things we did together.

So far, I have only talked about the good things about family – the things that make you feel warm and fuzzy and hopefully grateful. But we have to realize that in our society today, our families are not going to look the same, they are not going to look like the “American Dream” type family, and they are most definitely not going to be perfect. Families endure the hardest things in life together, whether it is getting bad news, losing a loved one, or even financial struggles. Families stick together.

Lastly, family does not have to be limited to those that you live with. It does not have to be those that you are “related” to. If you ask me, a huge family that I have is my Church family. God has graciously given me brothers and sisters in Christ to grow in this Spiritual walk with. Yes, it is important to do that with those that you are related to as well, but this opens the doors to how we are all adopted into the family of our Father in Heaven.

Pastor Aaron preached this past Sunday about how to have an “Awesome Family”. He shares some great points about why family is so critically important and how it is necessary in our lives. I encourage you to take the next hour or so and listen to the Biblical points that Pastor Aaron shares about so that you too, can have an awesome family, not just an average one. http://painesvilleag.com/awesome-relationships-2

Who do you identify as part of your family? Take some time and think about who God has placed in your life to identify as your family and then thank each member for traveling with you through life!

Jenny Bushnell,
College Student, Writer, Blogger

‘Til Death Do Us Part

 

I may have shared with you in a previous blog that I am an identical twin.  There were more than a few challenges growing up.  Early in my childhood I only remember that I had a close friend in my brother and he looked just like me.  With the exception of the arguing that sometimes follows any relationship, we were constant companions and I enjoyed that.  And I think my brother enjoyed it as much as I did.

We had the same friends.  We had the same boundaries that mom and dad set.  We were extremely blessed.  This particular relationship as a child determined my happiness.  But we don’t remain as children.  And that caused some challenges.

I guess the biggest challenge came when we were about to enter into Middle School.  The season changed you might say.  My brother was not my closest friend anymore.  He was just my twin brother.  We didn’t share too many things any longer.  We didn’t have the same likes and dislikes.  And our daily boundaries changed as we finished Middle School and entered High School.

I started this blog with a short background of my early years as to lay the groundwork for relationships.  As a child, I didn’t know there would be “other” relationships down the road, nor did I realize there would be change that would affect me for the rest of my life.

In 1977, I married a woman and friend from my high school days.  We were happy and were blessed by two lovely kids together.  But as time went along, the relationship changed.  We both had fulfilled our adult dreams of a house, two children, two good jobs, and two cars.  We were the typical American family.  We became bored with everything we had amassed.  We dearly loved our children, but as man and wife, we lost our love for one another.   Our relationship ended in divorce.  Marriage did not create our problems.  Marriage revealed them.  Marriage simply magnified what was already a problem in me that went masked when I was living as a single adult.

In thinking about how I would put this blog together about awesome relationships, I knew there were three relationships that affected me so much that my life would never be the same. I need to write about each one.

In my divorce I realized relationships determined my happiness as well as my sorrow.  There is nothing that can relieve the sting of a conflicted relationship nor the wounds of a hurtful one.  There were influential forces around me like culture, economic pressures, and even spiritual hosts of wickedness that were attacking me and my wife.  What I didn’t understand was almost nothing in society today supported us building a healthy, godly relationship.

In the second relationship, I learned later after I was divorced for one year that I needed the one and only piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have.  That piece was the Cross of Calvary.  I needed Jesus in my life as my Lord and Savior.  I needed a relationship that would never end.  This relationship would affect my life in the most profound way.  Jesus would forgive me of all of my sins.  He would help me understand the true meaning of love.  And He will usher me into a life that will end in everlasting life with Him.

I did mention that there were three relationships that I would write about.  The third relationship is my relationship with my present wife, Nancy.  God gave me a gift of immense proportions.  A blessing beyond measure.  He gave me a wife to share in a relationship with Him and who has taught me how to grow in Christ every day.  God wanted me to have an AWESOME relationship; both in Spirit with Him and on earth with Nancy.

Marriage has purpose.  That purpose can be found in God’s Word.  God has given us all things, including marriage.  Marriage was to be an antidote to loneliness.  Here is what the Jesus said about this:  “But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation.  ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’  Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.” (Mark 10:6-9 NLT)  Marriage is God’s idea.

Having a permanent relationship with my wife is extremely important to me.  God has given me the ability, through Him, to keep my marriage permanent. It is a relationship that is binding on me.  It takes precedence over any immediate need.  It is a Covenantal Relationship.  That is because, at its core, it is teaching us to love and sacrifice even when we don’t see the benefit.  It is allowing God to shape the character of both Nancy and I through the keeping of our promise to love, honor, and obey until death do us part.

If you want to hear a powerful message on Fighting for an Awesome Marriage, click the link to hear Pastor Aaron Taylor.  http://painesvilleag.com/awesome-relationships-2

Friend, you may not have the same story.  But undoubtedly, you have relationships in your life.  A relationship with God is one that is of the utmost importance.  God gave Himself for us so that we could have a covenant relationship with Him.

Maybe one of those relationships is marriage.  God designed marriage.  Marriage is good despite the ridicule it has received from today’s culture.  Marriage is about connection and friendship and companionship.  Marriage is about covenant and allowing God to shape our character through our mate.  It is about allowing God to shape you and make you Holy as you keep the promise to love one another.  Jesus loving us, the church, and giving of Himself sacrificially is the picture of what the marriage relationship should look like. My prayer for you is that if you are in a marriage, make a commitment to stay in your marriage.  God will provide what you need and lay out your course together.  It really is worth it.

George Leonhardt
Writer/Blogger