friends

slowly learning how to
"love the friend more than the friendship".
although this phrase used to make me shrug my shoulders a bit-- it's now making more and more sense. as i struggle to love my friends without valueing their relationships more than God and i's--i keep coming back to this puzzling statment. i have found things to be so different in attempting to make this phrase true in my life. in the light of this advice, passive words and actions can be no more. if i truely love my friends more than i love their friendship there is so much honesty that i've been cheating them out of. so many nudges back in the direction of our Father that i've been choosing to forgo.

authenticity is a dangerous thing. dangerous or not, there is no one i would rather be authentic with than these friends in my small group that i have grown to love as brothers and sisters but... honest words seem to die on my tongue in the face of hurt feelings or chaotic reactions. i know this is how Jesus loved His friends--and i am supposed to aspire to be like Him--but i am not Him and it is so hard to know...just so hard to know how to love someone else with no thought of self. just so hard to jump into things in this fashion. so dangerous.

walking in the ever present danger of this calling to love others more than myself is an anxious place for me right now. i am walking there--only out of sheer obedience. but i have yet to grasp the trust peice in this process. kinda like "i'll do it because you said so but...i don't know what's going to happen..." as if the God of the universe doesn't already have it covered. . .

loving God and loving others--more than myself. guess that's what it all comes back to.

looks easy--lives hard.