Skip to main content

Helping Your Friends Find Strength in God Part I

For my next several entries I'm going to share some thoughts on helping your friends find strength in God when they are going through tough times. This is Part 1.

I Samuel 23: 14-18
15 While David was at Horesh in the Desert of Ziph, he learned that Saul had come out to take his life. 16 And Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. 17 "Don't be afraid," he said. "My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this." 18 The two of them made a covenant before the LORD . Then Jonathan went home, but David remained at Horesh. These three verses give a very powerful lesson about friendship and its power to help one make it through difficult places in life. Here are some of the lessons we can learn from Jonathan and David.

Jonathan encouraged David by just being there. Just show up.
David was in a precarious situation. He was in a desert trying to get away from Saul. Saul had spies everywhere. Jonathan didn’t say “David knows where I live if he needs me he can send me a messenger." Jonathan just showed up for a very brief visit. Jonathan couldn’t just ride up to David with the king’s heralds going before him, but he didn’t let thoughts for his own discomfort or personal safety stop him from being there for his friend.

Many times people go through trouble and their friends just stay away from them. Look at Job’s brothers, sisters and other friends. Job 42:11 When his fortunes turned prosperous again then they came back around. It implies that they abandoned him too. When you don’t support your friends or relatives in trouble you allow the negative naysayers to have their way as happened to Job.

The most comforting thing I found that helped me through the shocking, unexpected death of my husband was just the presence of people with me. Within literal minutes of finding out my husband was dead people began to show up at my house. How the news got around so fast I’ll never know. In fact before his body was even removed from our house, where he died peacefully in his sleep, people were here. I felt enveloped in love by the initial show of love and support. Just show up!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it Really a Bargain?

Yesterday, my son and I went to the big box store determined to be one of the winners in the quest for a bargain.I wanted a reduced priced television. He was looking for a deal on a laptop. We were doomed to failure before we even started shopping. Outside of the store an employee informed the entering crowd that all of the big tickets items were gone. Among other items there were no more specials on televisions or laptops. We decided we would brave the hundreds of shoppers and take a look around anyway. The sign in front of the television display reminded the shoppers to not forget to buy the accessory package for the LCD television. I turned to my son and said, “Costco is selling the whole package, tv and accessories for less than this supposed deal.” My missed sale tv really was not a bargain at all. Reflecting on this experience made me wonder how many times I’ve decided to do something that looked like I would be saving something only to find out that in the long run I’ve pa...
Post a Comment
Read more

One Golden Moment

We sit laughingly around the huge mound of presents under the tree in the big living at my parent’s home on High Street in Philadelphia. The doorbell rings. In bounds the ones for whom we’re waiting, my sister and her husband and children from Virginia. . Here we all are, all of us together. My own husband, sons and I have flown in from the West Coast to spend the holidays on the East Coast. Tons of presents together with squiggly grandchildren and aunts, uncles and grandparents make for a memorable scene. For me it’s a golden moment in time. All is right in the world. Christmas tree lights twinkle. Someone takes up the task to start calling names. Will we ever get through all of these presents? As the presents are picked up for distribution they seem to uncover another dozen hiding underneath. Well, there are eight brothers and sisters who have produced 12 grandchildren at this point. Such delight from squealing boys and girls and agreeing oohs and aahs from parents aunts and uncles...
Post a Comment
Read more

Songs in the Night

This week marks eight years since the sudden and unexpected passing of my late husband Winston. That was a strange land for me. The land of loss and death. At first I needed to hear others sing because the song in my heart was frozen with grief and I was traumatized. I’d sing God’s song later with help from others. There were tapes I listened to that reminded me of the Lord’s song. It was the voice on the radio or the television that told me God would bring me out of these trials. It was the voice of my mother telling me and reminding me of God’s faithfulness to me in the past. How could I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? In the next phase on my journey through grief after the sudden death of my husband I tried to sing along with those who were on the journey with me At first I’d only get a few words out before the tears started to flow. I kept trying day after day to sing along. I was reminded of God’s word. I was strengthened by constantly hearing the words of faith and ...
1 comment
Read more