Friend Dumped

³⁵ Jesus wept.
John 11:35 (ESV)

Ever had a friend just decide that they don't want to be friends anymore?  They may blow up at you, they may tell you they don't have time for you, or just fade away out of your life and start ignoring you.  I looked for verses in the Bible that dealt with this, and one was the "shortest verse in the Bible".  Jesus wept.

At first I was like, that doesn't apply.  He was crying because Lazarus was dead.  He was grieving over the loss of a friend who had died.  And yet, he knew what he was going to do.  He knew that Lazarus would be alive again.  Yet he still wept.  He still grieved.  And so the lesson to me here was, even when it seems silly - even when it seems like a pointless gesture - sometimes you have to grieve, because that is how you feel.  Jesus wasn't crying because he would never see his friend again.  He was crying because he was sad.  He had suffered a loss.

Sometimes, you just gotta grieve.

Every time someone walks out of my life, it is intensely painful to me.  I do not handle rejection well.  I always internalize it and endlessly examine what I might have done wrong to make someone not want to be my friend anymore.  One of the things I have learned through swing dancing is that rejection is not about you - it's about them.  There can be a lot of reasons for rejection.  Whatever the issue - it's not yours.

If a relationship is worth saving, someone will go through the effort of explaining their issue with you and resolving it.  If they aren't willing to put in the effort, then they're not the friend you thought they were.  That doesn't mean they're not worth the effort though.

Our society puts a lot of emphasis on cutting and running when things get tough.  Movies tell us everything should have a happy ending.  TV shows tell us that if a relationship is bumpy, it's better to break up - if a marriage isn't working, get a divorce.  Any relationship takes two people.  If one is done, there is nothing you can do.

So you must move on.  And weep.


http://kairosverse.blogspot.com

There Is No Fear In Love

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

I John 4:18 (ESV)

This is one of my favorite verses. It was the theme verse when I was on the Winter Celebration planning group as a youth. This verse has always been a comfort to me since then. This is such a Godly way of saying, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear.

No fear. Just love. Even in places of darkness there is light because of love. God made the ultimate sacrifice for us out of love. He bestowed his grace upon us and because of that we are free to love. God's grace takes away our fear and replaces it with love.


http://kairosverse.blogspot.com

Bringing Kairos to the Real World

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Revelation 2:4 (ESV)

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

- Revelation 2:4-5 (NIV)

I found this one today and it is interesting because of what someone wrote about it. This was written to the church in Ephesus, and it is a call not of judgement, but of love - to come back into the fold. As we get farther away from Kairos, it is a call to remember not just the feelings of Kairos, but why we felt that way and to hold that in our heart as we deal with people in our daily lives.

We have been given a gift of Christian fellowship at Kairos that let us break down barriers. Now that we're in the real world, we can remember that and try to do the same, or at least not erect the walls so high as last time.

http://kairosverse.blogspot.com