26 Things

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Parallel Pursuits




While I was filling a chair in a favorite coffee shop of mine, I noticed someone a little "different" enter. He seemed to be mentally disabled, and approached the counter with gumption, totally unaware of his surroundings (which, by the way, I love and admire). Anyway, he was going about his business and then all of a sudden shouted, "I need friends," in an honest, but innocent way. Of course, my instinct was to laugh..but mid-laugh I caught myself. I realized in that moment a rather sobering thought: we are all the same. We all have the same needs and desires. Friendship is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been evaluating the existing ones, and imagining what I would like some new ones to look like. I have been blessed with many wonderful friends, from many different seasons in life. They each bring something incredibly unique to my life and have shaped me and helped me grow. I love them. Sometimes I can be a needy friend, but I have come to realize that it's because I don't expect or want anything that I'm not willing to give myself, or that I'm not already pouring into the relationship. Anyway, my point is that I too have felt the same thing my coffee shop friend was shouting. That there is somewhat of a lack in my life at times, and the easiest thing to pin that on is friends, or in some cases a significant other, or the absence of one. But as I walk through this season of unmet neediness, I am continually and beautifully reminded that it's God I've been looking for. He is better than a million of the most attentive, most caring friends. He is the ultimate friend, but how easy is it to overlook Him in our search for intimacy? I definitely believe that we were created for relationship and friends are a necessary and wonderful blessing, but they are meant to be secondary to the all-satisfying friendship we can find in our Creator. I heard a powerful quote recently, helping to tie together everything God has been showing me lately and is says this:
"The more you seek the glory that comes from the only God, [the more] you will have all the affirmation you need to look around you and seek people to love—not people who’ll love you. You will be able to be a true friend when you are loving out of an abundance not deficiency."

So this is my goal and my journey. To learn to rely on God's love alone, not so that I diminish or neglect my friendships, but so I can release those relationships and people from the burden of providing me affirmation, and so that I can love better and be a healthier friend. I want to focus more on what I can offer, not what friendships offer me. I want to learn to apply the principle of giving one-hundred percent and expecting zero, sculpting a reality somewhere in the middle with people I love and have been given to do life with.