I have found a friend here who I can totally trust, someone who stretches my faith and encourages me as I process things. I don’t feel uncomfortable around them and can act myself. Though we have only been friends for about a year, it feels like we have been friends for a life time but this friendship didn't develop overnight. It took time to learn about each other. It was not an easy process but worth the work. Our relationship is a great blessing from God.
Our relationship with Jesus can be very similar. If you want to grow in that relationship, it takes time and effort to develop a good connection and if you don’t take the time to keep working on the relationship, it will slowly fade and the connection will weaken.
“Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. “ Philippians 3:3-5
I just read the story of Florence Chadwick in my new Devotional. She tried to swim 26 miles (41.8K) across a chilly ocean. After about 15 hours, she no longer had the strength to move forward and wanted to stop, but her mother kept encouraging her to keep going. In the end she came up short of making it all the way. After she was pulled out, she learned that she was only a half mile away from the finish line. Florence had not been able to see the shore because fog had blocked her view. I think if Florence could have seen the shore through the fog, she would have kept pushing herself and reached her goal.
Just like Florence, fog and other things might come along and block your view. There will be times in your relationship that things are not going to be easy. That's when it is exciting to see how God encourages you to just keep on swimming or running or climbing. If I had relied on my first impression of my friend, we probably would not have become friends. Just like Florence I did not see past the fog. Florence did not let that first time stop her from trying again to reach her goal. A few years later she made it. As Christians, we know that everlasting life will be the end result I not sure about you, but holding onto that promise of everlasting life, helps me get through the fog and keep my eyes on the goal mark ahead for me.
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