FRIENDS

As a new college student, I am making an attempt to make new friends.  Everyone here seems to be very friendly and also wants to make new friends.  Part of this may be that there are more than 6,000 freshman who are also trying to meet new people and make new friendships.  As I attempt to meet new people through various methods, I have to ask myself, "Why?"  Why do I need friends? Why do I crave the contact of other people?  Why can't I just depend on God for fulfillment?  The simple answer to this is God designed humans for human contact.

The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man [Adam] to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him."

Genesis 2:18

God wants us to have friends.  He wants us to have fellowship with other people.  He wants us to support others and to accept support from others.  He wants us to share his Love with others.  

He wants us to depend of him to be fulfilled.  He Loves us so much that his Love is all that we need.  However, He wants us to share his Love with everyone.  He wants us to show the world that He loves everyone.  If we look to human love to be filled up, then we are going to be sadly disappointed.  As hard as we try to fulfill the definition of love given to us in 1 Corinthians 13, we are going to fail.  Therefore, our first step to being fulfilled is looking to  God for love.  Then, as we experience his Love, we can learn to love others the way that we are designed.

So why do I need to make friends?  I need to make friends so that I can love.  I need to make friends so that God can show the world his Love through me.  I can make friends with the motivation being that I need friends to care about me, but that isn't what it should be about.  My goal in making friends should be to show them God's love, so that they can experience his Power, his Glory, his Mercy, and his Grace. 

Love, true, self-sacrificing, unselfish love, is an incredible force.  It's hard.  It is not a weakness.  To love takes strength.  And to find that strength, I will look to God, and his Love will fill me up, pour over the edges, and immerse others in something more powerful then they could even imagine.