HOME | DD

Description
The Friend of God
Genesis 11:10-12:9 - The Call of Abraham
June 20, 2004, PM Service

I memorized Isaiah 41:10 about thirty years ago.  “Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”  But it was only recently that I made the connection with the preceding verses which speak of the relationship behind the promise.

  But you, Israel my servant,
     Jacob, whom I have chosen,
     the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
  you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
     and called from its farthest corners,
  saying to you, “You are my servant,
     I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
  do not fear, for I am with you,
     do not be afraid, for I am your God;
  I will strengthen you, I will help you,
     I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

It struck me that in all the Old Testament, only Abraham is called “God's friend”.  Moses gets as close as a simile; God speaks to him “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend”.  But only Abraham is called directly, “the friend of God”.  Then suddenly in the New Testament, Jesus says to the disciples, “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

What does it mean to be God's friend?  And what's with this huge leap from just one man in the Old Testament to all who follow Jesus in the New Testament?  What does it mean to me to be God's friend?  What does it mean to you?
The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.”  It all goes back to Abraham.  Abraham's story is our story, for we are his children, and like him somehow, friends of God.

Abraham's story is the story of two people, God and Abraham, getting to know each other has friends, and growing in friendship as they learn to trust each other.  The story starts here in chapters eleven and twelve and continues on to chapter 22 and the binding of Isaac, where God says, “Can you trust me even in this?” and Abraham says, “Let's go.”

Who are these two?  How does their friendship begin?  How does it grow?  And how do you and I grow in our friendship with God?

Who are these people?

The first eleven chapters of Genesis tell us the story of God as the creator of the world and the creator of humankind.  God has suffered through a series of failed relationships with human beings.  People have failed him over and over.  There have been a few bright spots.  Enoch walks with God.  Noah finds favor with God, for Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.  But even Noah ends up looking like a drunken old fool.  Then comes the disaster of Babel, as all humankind bands together build a city, a tower, a name for themselves, all without God.

But see the severe mercy of our God.  After the serpent beguiled Adam and Eve, God barred the way to the tree of life lest human beings should have to suffer living forever in the despair of their brokenness.  At Babel he confuses the language of the people of the plain of Shinar lest they succeed in building the great city without God, with its tower reaching to the heavens.  The city was called Babel, “confusion”.  Had they succeeded in building the city where God did not dwell, had they succeeded in making a name for themselves, the name would have been Hell, for that is the name of the place where God does not dwell.  See the severe mercy of our God.

God created people to be like him and to be with him.  So far, his relationship with the people he created has mostly gone sour.

What of Abraham?  Genesis 11 traces the line of Shem, eldest son of Noah.  The firstborn sons are listed.  Each had
a son of his own at a relatively young age, lived some more years and had other sons and daughters, then lived some more years.  Not much of a story to write home about.  They were fertile, but that was about it.  Terah is a little older when he gets around to having children, 70 versus 30 or so, but he has three sons, two of whom have children of their own.  Terah leaves Ur for Canaan and gets as far as Haran in the upper tributaries of the Euphrates.  He lives some more years and has other sons and daughters, and dies.  It's still not much of a story.

What of Abraham?  Abraham is still Abram at this point.  But the “exalted father”, for that is what his name means, has no children.  After all the celebrated fertility of his forebears and brothers, the wife of this eldest son of Terah is barren.  Abram lived some years.  Abram had no son.  Abram lived some more years.  Abram still had no children.  Abram's story has all the makings of a very short story.  If anything interesting is going to happen with Terah's line it will seems it will have to happen through Nahor.

The beginning of the friendship – God calls

God, however, has other plans.  God calls Abram.  It seems that Abram's story maybe isn't over yet.  God calls Abram not so much to a place, “the land which I will show you”, as to a relationship based on promises.  What does God promise?

1.  I will make you into a great nation – God promises Abram children, descendents.
2.  I will bless you – God promises him prosperity.
3.  I will make your name great – what the Babelites could not do for themselves God will do for Abram.
4.  I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing – you are going to matter, your story will be worth telling.
5.  I will bless those who bless you; I will curse those who curse you – I will be on your side.
6.  In you all the families of the earth will be blessed – even if in spite of you.

God declares himself to be on Abram's side.  And in declaring himself to be on Abram's side, God declares himself to be on the side of failed humanity.  For God so loved the world that he called Abram.  Now Abram is a most unlikely candidate for such a call.  Unlike Noah or Enoch, whom God had favored, Abram hasn't done anything to show himself righteous.  He has no righteousness, no children, no prospects.

But something has changed.  God is changing tactics in a big way.  He has done exceedingly poorly at finding righteous human beings with whom he can have the sort of relationship he craves.  If God waits for people to be righteous and call on him, it's going to be a long wait.  If God does nothing, even with the confusion of languages, humankind will finally succeed in building their Hell on Earth.  If God is going to wait for people to come to him, it's going to be a hell of a long wait, because that is where we all will be.

God chooses the way of grace.  Instead of looking for a righteous man who will walk with him, God chooses Abram and promises to walk with him, so that he can become righteous,  a blessing to the world.  The storyteller makes sure we know that there is nothing about Abram that would make him a likely choice.  Or could he be telling us that Abram is a likely choice precisely because if God doesn't step in, the line of Shem will soon sputter into obscurity.

God calls Abram.  He bets on the dark horse.  He stakes his relationship with his people on a long shot, on one childless couple halfway between home and somewhere else.  There is a touch of folly in the whole idea.  Or call it grace.  God's gracious folly is Abram's hope.

The beginning of friendship – Abram goes

Surprise number one: God calls Abram.  Surprise number two: Abram gets up and goes.  Abram packs up Sarai, Lot, and all his possessions, flocks, herds, and servants, and sets out for the land of Canaan.  Or maybe not so surprising.  Maybe Abram figures he has nothing to lose, he's in the mood for an adventure, and this strange voice is the closest thing to a likely prospect that he has heard in a very long time.  There is a touch of folly on Abram's side, too.

Remember, from Abram's point of view, this God person is himself a rather unlikely prospect.  We are not given an indication that Abram or his forebears have had any dealings with God for the last ten generations.  If God stakes his future on an unknown Abram, Abram likewise stakes his future on a God he has just met.  A touch of folly?  Yes, or call it the beginnings of trust.

The text simply says, “So Abram went as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.  Abram was seventy five years old when he departed from Haran.”  Abram packs up his entourage and sets out for Canaan.  It makes one wonder why Terah had long ago set out for Canaan but only made it as far as Haran.  And did Abram see his own call as the continuation of some long ago call or dream of Terah?  Or did God call Abram first in Ur of the Chaldeans only to have Abram unwilling to go out on his own, unwilling to leave his father's family behind?  Here's one for you.  If you add up the ages and time spans, Terah still has ninety years to live when Abram finally sets out for Canaan, the announcement of Terah's death not withstanding.  But as far as the narrator is concerned, when Abram sets out for Canaan, Terah is out of the picture, his story is finished.  Abram and narrator both leave Terah and family behind in Haran.  From here on out it's going to be God and Abram.

Abram sets out.  He arrives in Canaan and gets to Shechem.  In quick succession the narrator tells us several significant things about Abram.

1. There is an announcement: At that time the Canaanites were in the land.  Abram is here, but he's in someone else's territory.  This is Canaanite country.
2.  God appears again to Abram and promises, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  The Canaanites may be here,  but the land belongs to the Lord.
3.  Abram builds an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.  The last time this happened was when Noah built an altar after being saved through the flood.  God and his people are back speaking to each other.  This is a good thing.
4.  Abram moves on to the area around Bethel.  Bethel, that is, the house of God.  Again, the Canaanites may be living in the land, but God has staked his claim.  At Bethel, Abram pitches his tent, builds an altar to the Lord, and calls on the name of the Lord.
5.  From Bethel, Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb, the south country, presumably pitching his tent, building altars, and calling on the name of the Lord.

The action has moved from Babel  to Bethel, from house of confusion to the house of God.  The actors have likewise changed from the unnamed men of Babel to Abram and Sarai.

The men of Bethel had no need of God.  They were going to make a name for themselves, build a city and a tower for themselves and in their place.  Babel was an emphatic 'no' to God.

Abram says 'yes' to God.  He chooses to wait and let God make his name great.  Childless, he wanders in a land that is not his own, but promised to his descendants.  He pitches his tent wherever he finds a convenient spot.  The only permanent structures Abram leaves behind are altars to this mysterious God who told him to get up and go and promised to bless him and make him a blessing.

Conclusions – We are God's friends

So we have God and Abram, sort of starting to get to know each other.  Friendship with God is a lot like that.  It has a lot to do with following a call we can neither explain nor ignore.  It has a lot to do with a journey with a whole lot of unknowns, undertaken on the basis of a promise that God will somehow bless us and make us a blessing.

For reasons of his own God calls us to head out on a journey.  Abram and Sarai are, after all, only the first in a long series of unlikely prospects and underdogs and long shots.  And somehow we decide to begin this journey and we keep on deciding to stick with it.  Like Abraham our forbear, we walk by faith, not by sight.

As you read on in Genesis you quickly discover that Abram is not an instant success.  There is a lot of ugliness in his life.  Not once but twice he hands over his wife to save his skin.  The triangle of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar is a nasty a triangle as you could ask for.  But God doesn't walk out on him.  Friends don't walk out on friends.

It works both ways.  Abraham along the way has to get along with only brief encounters with God spread out over years or even decades.  And while God keeps promising descendants, Abraham and Sarah keep getting older.  Says the text, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.”  “Menopause,” says Sarah, “was a long time ago.  And you're telling me I will yet bear a son?”  No wonder she laughed.  But through it all, Abraham doesn't walk out on God.  Friends don't walk out on friends.  Somehow the two of them, God and Abraham, manage to pull off something new in the universe, that a fallen, hopeless, and sometimes simply nasty, human being could walk with God and be called his friend.

And now Jesus calls us friends.  No greater love is there than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  Only God-become-man truly knows just how much it cost him to be our friend.  But that is the sort of thing that friends do, and keep on doing, in spite of ugliness.

Today in various ways we have honored fathers.  It is fitting that we should honor those who have loved us and cared for us,  walked before us and led us on the way.  Consider what a blessing it is when father, or mother, is also a friend who walks not only before us but with us.

God our Father wants to be our friend.  God the Son, Jesus our brother, wants to be our friend.  God the Holy Spirit fills us and gives us life and love and words to pray when we have no words.  He lives in all of us and each of us so that each of us can know God and be known by God and be called his friend.  Once again, God has changed tactics.  He has called us into his circle of friends and told us what he is up to.  Because of the coming of Jesus and the out-showering of the Holy Spirit, not just Abraham, but all God's people may called the friend of God.

Sometimes we hear his voice more clearly and the way seems plain; sometimes we just keep on moving along through life, pitching our tents in a foreign land, building altars, and calling on the name of the Lord.  We don't know the details of the itinerary, all we can do is keep on singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”  Lisa and I both keyed in independently on the section of the Contemporary Testimony on Scripture.  This is not Babel; it is Bethel. God speaks to us in his Word and pours out on us his Spirit.  Our world belongs to God, and so do you and I.

Do you want something to take home with you?  Consider this.  The basic disciplines of the Christian life haven't changed much in the two millennia since Pentecost.  Slow down a bit.  Take the time it takes to keep yourself in the Word and in prayer.  Twenty years ago I was getting ready for a seminary internship that proved, shall we say, not to be as positive an experience as we all and Lisa have shared.  It has not been an easy time since then.  One of the primary ways the Lord has kept my head relatively together over the years has been by having me read his book cover-to-cover every year.   Read it, my friends, let it fill you.  And don't leave scripture memory to the primary grades.  It's a worthwhile adult discipline, too.

In spite of the ugliness in my life God keeps on keeping on being my friend, unlikely a prospect as I may be.  In spite of the ugliness in your life God keeps on keeping on being your friend, unlikely a prospect as you may be.  God walks with me, he wants me to take the time to walk with him, he wants me to be his friend.  God walks with you, he wants you to take the time to walk with him, he wants you to be his friend.  Folly?  Perhaps.  Grace?  By all means.  Thanks be to God.

Description
The Friend of God
Genesis 11:10-12:9 - The Call of Abraham
June 20, 2004, PM Service

I memorized Isaiah 41:10 about thirty years ago.  “Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”  But it was only recently that I made the connection with the preceding verses which speak of the relationship behind the promise.

  But you, Israel my servant,
     Jacob, whom I have chosen,
     the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
  you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
     and called from its farthest corners,
  saying to you, “You are my servant,
     I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
  do not fear, for I am with you,
     do not be afraid, for I am your God;
  I will strengthen you, I will help you,
     I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

It struck me that in all the Old Testament, only Abraham is called “God's friend”.  Moses gets as close as a simile; God speaks to him “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend”.  But only Abraham is called directly, “the friend of God”.  Then suddenly in the New Testament, Jesus says to the disciples, “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

What does it mean to be God's friend?  And what's with this huge leap from just one man in the Old Testament to all who follow Jesus in the New Testament?  What does it mean to me to be God's friend?  What does it mean to you?
The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.”  It all goes back to Abraham.  Abraham's story is our story, for we are his children, and like him somehow, friends of God.

Abraham's story is the story of two people, God and Abraham, getting to know each other has friends, and growing in friendship as they learn to trust each other.  The story starts here in chapters eleven and twelve and continues on to chapter 22 and the binding of Isaac, where God says, “Can you trust me even in this?” and Abraham says, “Let's go.”

Who are these two?  How does their friendship begin?  How does it grow?  And how do you and I grow in our friendship with God?

Who are these people?

The first eleven chapters of Genesis tell us the story of God as the creator of the world and the creator of humankind.  God has suffered through a series of failed relationships with human beings.  People have failed him over and over.  There have been a few bright spots.  Enoch walks with God.  Noah finds favor with God, for Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.  But even Noah ends up looking like a drunken old fool.  Then comes the disaster of Babel, as all humankind bands together build a city, a tower, a name for themselves, all without God.

But see the severe mercy of our God.  After the serpent beguiled Adam and Eve, God barred the way to the tree of life lest human beings should have to suffer living forever in the despair of their brokenness.  At Babel he confuses the language of the people of the plain of Shinar lest they succeed in building the great city without God, with its tower reaching to the heavens.  The city was called Babel, “confusion”.  Had they succeeded in building the city where God did not dwell, had they succeeded in making a name for themselves, the name would have been Hell, for that is the name of the place where God does not dwell.  See the severe mercy of our God.

God created people to be like him and to be with him.  So far, his relationship with the people he created has mostly gone sour.

What of Abraham?  Genesis 11 traces the line of Shem, eldest son of Noah.  The firstborn sons are listed.  Each had
a son of his own at a relatively young age, lived some more years and had other sons and daughters, then lived some more years.  Not much of a story to write home about.  They were fertile, but that was about it.  Terah is a little older when he gets around to having children, 70 versus 30 or so, but he has three sons, two of whom have children of their own.  Terah leaves Ur for Canaan and gets as far as Haran in the upper tributaries of the Euphrates.  He lives some more years and has other sons and daughters, and dies.  It's still not much of a story.

What of Abraham?  Abraham is still Abram at this point.  But the “exalted father”, for that is what his name means, has no children.  After all the celebrated fertility of his forebears and brothers, the wife of this eldest son of Terah is barren.  Abram lived some years.  Abram had no son.  Abram lived some more years.  Abram still had no children.  Abram's story has all the makings of a very short story.  If anything interesting is going to happen with Terah's line it will seems it will have to happen through Nahor.

The beginning of the friendship – God calls

God, however, has other plans.  God calls Abram.  It seems that Abram's story maybe isn't over yet.  God calls Abram not so much to a place, “the land which I will show you”, as to a relationship based on promises.  What does God promise?

1.  I will make you into a great nation – God promises Abram children, descendents.
2.  I will bless you – God promises him prosperity.
3.  I will make your name great – what the Babelites could not do for themselves God will do for Abram.
4.  I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing – you are going to matter, your story will be worth telling.
5.  I will bless those who bless you; I will curse those who curse you – I will be on your side.
6.  In you all the families of the earth will be blessed – even if in spite of you.

God declares himself to be on Abram's side.  And in declaring himself to be on Abram's side, God declares himself to be on the side of failed humanity.  For God so loved the world that he called Abram.  Now Abram is a most unlikely candidate for such a call.  Unlike Noah or Enoch, whom God had favored, Abram hasn't done anything to show himself righteous.  He has no righteousness, no children, no prospects.

But something has changed.  God is changing tactics in a big way.  He has done exceedingly poorly at finding righteous human beings with whom he can have the sort of relationship he craves.  If God waits for people to be righteous and call on him, it's going to be a long wait.  If God does nothing, even with the confusion of languages, humankind will finally succeed in building their Hell on Earth.  If God is going to wait for people to come to him, it's going to be a hell of a long wait, because that is where we all will be.

God chooses the way of grace.  Instead of looking for a righteous man who will walk with him, God chooses Abram and promises to walk with him, so that he can become righteous,  a blessing to the world.  The storyteller makes sure we know that there is nothing about Abram that would make him a likely choice.  Or could he be telling us that Abram is a likely choice precisely because if God doesn't step in, the line of Shem will soon sputter into obscurity.

God calls Abram.  He bets on the dark horse.  He stakes his relationship with his people on a long shot, on one childless couple halfway between home and somewhere else.  There is a touch of folly in the whole idea.  Or call it grace.  God's gracious folly is Abram's hope.

The beginning of friendship – Abram goes

Surprise number one: God calls Abram.  Surprise number two: Abram gets up and goes.  Abram packs up Sarai, Lot, and all his possessions, flocks, herds, and servants, and sets out for the land of Canaan.  Or maybe not so surprising.  Maybe Abram figures he has nothing to lose, he's in the mood for an adventure, and this strange voice is the closest thing to a likely prospect that he has heard in a very long time.  There is a touch of folly on Abram's side, too.

Remember, from Abram's point of view, this God person is himself a rather unlikely prospect.  We are not given an indication that Abram or his forebears have had any dealings with God for the last ten generations.  If God stakes his future on an unknown Abram, Abram likewise stakes his future on a God he has just met.  A touch of folly?  Yes, or call it the beginnings of trust.

The text simply says, “So Abram went as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.  Abram was seventy five years old when he departed from Haran.”  Abram packs up his entourage and sets out for Canaan.  It makes one wonder why Terah had long ago set out for Canaan but only made it as far as Haran.  And did Abram see his own call as the continuation of some long ago call or dream of Terah?  Or did God call Abram first in Ur of the Chaldeans only to have Abram unwilling to go out on his own, unwilling to leave his father's family behind?  Here's one for you.  If you add up the ages and time spans, Terah still has ninety years to live when Abram finally sets out for Canaan, the announcement of Terah's death not withstanding.  But as far as the narrator is concerned, when Abram sets out for Canaan, Terah is out of the picture, his story is finished.  Abram and narrator both leave Terah and family behind in Haran.  From here on out it's going to be God and Abram.

Abram sets out.  He arrives in Canaan and gets to Shechem.  In quick succession the narrator tells us several significant things about Abram.

1. There is an announcement: At that time the Canaanites were in the land.  Abram is here, but he's in someone else's territory.  This is Canaanite country.
2.  God appears again to Abram and promises, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  The Canaanites may be here,  but the land belongs to the Lord.
3.  Abram builds an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.  The last time this happened was when Noah built an altar after being saved through the flood.  God and his people are back speaking to each other.  This is a good thing.
4.  Abram moves on to the area around Bethel.  Bethel, that is, the house of God.  Again, the Canaanites may be living in the land, but God has staked his claim.  At Bethel, Abram pitches his tent, builds an altar to the Lord, and calls on the name of the Lord.
5.  From Bethel, Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb, the south country, presumably pitching his tent, building altars, and calling on the name of the Lord.

The action has moved from Babel  to Bethel, from house of confusion to the house of God.  The actors have likewise changed from the unnamed men of Babel to Abram and Sarai.

The men of Bethel had no need of God.  They were going to make a name for themselves, build a city and a tower for themselves and in their place.  Babel was an emphatic 'no' to God.

Abram says 'yes' to God.  He chooses to wait and let God make his name great.  Childless, he wanders in a land that is not his own, but promised to his descendants.  He pitches his tent wherever he finds a convenient spot.  The only permanent structures Abram leaves behind are altars to this mysterious God who told him to get up and go and promised to bless him and make him a blessing.

Conclusions – We are God's friends

So we have God and Abram, sort of starting to get to know each other.  Friendship with God is a lot like that.  It has a lot to do with following a call we can neither explain nor ignore.  It has a lot to do with a journey with a whole lot of unknowns, undertaken on the basis of a promise that God will somehow bless us and make us a blessing.

For reasons of his own God calls us to head out on a journey.  Abram and Sarai are, after all, only the first in a long series of unlikely prospects and underdogs and long shots.  And somehow we decide to begin this journey and we keep on deciding to stick with it.  Like Abraham our forbear, we walk by faith, not by sight.

As you read on in Genesis you quickly discover that Abram is not an instant success.  There is a lot of ugliness in his life.  Not once but twice he hands over his wife to save his skin.  The triangle of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar is a nasty a triangle as you could ask for.  But God doesn't walk out on him.  Friends don't walk out on friends.

It works both ways.  Abraham along the way has to get along with only brief encounters with God spread out over years or even decades.  And while God keeps promising descendants, Abraham and Sarah keep getting older.  Says the text, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.”  “Menopause,” says Sarah, “was a long time ago.  And you're telling me I will yet bear a son?”  No wonder she laughed.  But through it all, Abraham doesn't walk out on God.  Friends don't walk out on friends.  Somehow the two of them, God and Abraham, manage to pull off something new in the universe, that a fallen, hopeless, and sometimes simply nasty, human being could walk with God and be called his friend.

And now Jesus calls us friends.  No greater love is there than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  Only God-become-man truly knows just how much it cost him to be our friend.  But that is the sort of thing that friends do, and keep on doing, in spite of ugliness.

Today in various ways we have honored fathers.  It is fitting that we should honor those who have loved us and cared for us,  walked before us and led us on the way.  Consider what a blessing it is when father, or mother, is also a friend who walks not only before us but with us.

God our Father wants to be our friend.  God the Son, Jesus our brother, wants to be our friend.  God the Holy Spirit fills us and gives us life and love and words to pray when we have no words.  He lives in all of us and each of us so that each of us can know God and be known by God and be called his friend.  Once again, God has changed tactics.  He has called us into his circle of friends and told us what he is up to.  Because of the coming of Jesus and the out-showering of the Holy Spirit, not just Abraham, but all God's people may called the friend of God.

Sometimes we hear his voice more clearly and the way seems plain; sometimes we just keep on moving along through life, pitching our tents in a foreign land, building altars, and calling on the name of the Lord.  We don't know the details of the itinerary, all we can do is keep on singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”  Lisa and I both keyed in independently on the section of the Contemporary Testimony on Scripture.  This is not Babel; it is Bethel. God speaks to us in his Word and pours out on us his Spirit.  Our world belongs to God, and so do you and I.

Do you want something to take home with you?  Consider this.  The basic disciplines of the Christian life haven't changed much in the two millennia since Pentecost.  Slow down a bit.  Take the time it takes to keep yourself in the Word and in prayer.  Twenty years ago I was getting ready for a seminary internship that proved, shall we say, not to be as positive an experience as we all and Lisa have shared.  It has not been an easy time since then.  One of the primary ways the Lord has kept my head relatively together over the years has been by having me read his book cover-to-cover every year.   Read it, my friends, let it fill you.  And don't leave scripture memory to the primary grades.  It's a worthwhile adult discipline, too.

In spite of the ugliness in my life God keeps on keeping on being my friend, unlikely a prospect as I may be.  In spite of the ugliness in your life God keeps on keeping on being your friend, unlikely a prospect as you may be.  God walks with me, he wants me to take the time to walk with him, he wants me to be his friend.  God walks with you, he wants you to take the time to walk with him, he wants you to be his friend.  Folly?  Perhaps.  Grace?  By all means.  Thanks be to God.