Friends and Family

Friends and Family

This is a quote I use often, “God determines who walks into your life....it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.” I have no idea where it came from but it is significant in my own life. My wife and I had just “met” on Twitter when I put this out and she came back with, “Will you let me be one you don’t let go?”

It is said quite truthfully, that your family you are born with, but your friends you can choose. Perhaps that is why the church refers to a new Christian with the phrase, “Welcome to the family of God.” We are so blessed to be in a church where nearly everyone refers to the family of God as being “their family too”. They don’t just say it either, they mean it and put it into action.  

So, in our case, most of our friends are Christian, while many if not most of our wider family are not. We pray of course for all our unsaved friends and we pray even harder for unsaved family members. As I said earlier, our family we cannot choose but we can choose our friends. So why do we choose unsaved friends?

This is getting kinda complex isn’t it? We choose our friends from those whom “God determines who walks into your life....it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.” Does this mean we need to pray about everyone God brings across our path? I mean, some people are very hard to befriend and we sometimes wish they would walk away.  These may be the very ones God wants you to demonstrate His love to; the ones who actually need someone walking alongside of them. These, probably not very likeable folk, may never have seen God’s love in action – especially in their own lives.

Others choose to walk away of their own accord even though you really would like them to stay. You really have an affinity with them, but they just don’t want to know anything about God’s love at all. They are self-sufficient thank you very much and they don’t need you – so they choose to walk away. How do you ‘refuse to let them go’?

We, who are family, often don’t realise that those God brings across our paths need a man or woman of faith to befriend them. How often do we extend the hand? We are great at welcoming family but often very slow to welcome strangers, who may also need to meet God, into our world. We are even slower to open our doors to them. Yet this is exactly what God may want us to do. In giving them even so little as a glass of water, we may have been answering God’s call to them by showing His love. By sharing even what little we may have and showing a little hospitality, we may have “entertained angels”.

It is surely time to give compassion and love a chance. It is surely time to start being the church, rather than just talking about it and showing the world nothing of God’s love for all of them. God loves every single person out there – they just don’t all know it yet – unless or until we show them.

Just Do It ??