Friends – Being a Pilgrim

“Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress. My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all! Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins.”
Psalm 25:16-18 NLT

Loneliness is a terrible place to be. It is something that afflicts too many people, who may be surrounded by their family, friends and neighbours, but lack any meaningful contact with any of them. I recently came across an elderly woman sitting on a seat in the town centre, her walker cum shopping trolley next to her, but she was staring blankly into the distance. I wished her a cheery “good morning” and this unleashed a tale of distress about her life of being alone. She had mobility issues and had struggled to get there after a short bus journey. She was almost marooned in a first floor flat without a lift and her neighbours had no time for her. There was no family close by and she was facing into an uncertain future, lonely and miserable. Her situation is not unique by a long way and there are many in the UK today just like her. Just this morning I came across a man sitting on a park bench, seemingly impervious to the cold wind. He seemed to be in a lonely other-world and only briefly returned my greeting before lapsing back into his musings. God once said to me that sometimes all He wants me to do is to say “Good Morning” to someone when out on my daily walks. An opportunity to share God’s Gospel of hope will perhaps come later.

David confessed to being alone in spite of all the people around him. At least at this point in his life when he wrote Psalm 25 he seemed to lack the companionship of someone like Jonathan, King Saul’s son. We read about the start of his friendship in 1 Samuel 18:1, 3, “After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. … And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself”. The next few chapters in 1 Samuel provide a story of an increasingly unstable Saul and how Jonathan tried to mitigate the attacks against David. And then in 1 Samuel 31:2 we read, “The Philistines closed in on Saul and his sons, and they killed three of his sons—Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua“. David was devastated, as we can expect. 2 Samuel 1:11-12, “David and his men tore their clothes in sorrow when they heard the news. They mourned and wept and fasted all day for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the Lord’s army and the nation of Israel, because they had died by the sword that day“.‭‭ After Jonathan, David never really seemed to build a friendship with anyone, and here he is lamenting in Psalm 25 about being lonely. He grumbles to God, “Feel my pain and see my trouble“.

Loneliness was something God wanted mankind to avoid right from the beginning of His creation. Genesis 2:18, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him“”. Adam was never going to be lonely with God and Eve blessing his life. In those idyllic days in the Garden, God used to walk with Adam and Eve in the coolness of the evening (Genesis 3:8) but note that because of sin, that custom ceased, and Adam and Eve had the potential to become lonely. The devil has tormented mankind ever since the Fall, to fuel his intention to destroy and abuse anything to do with God. Loneliness is one of the ways in which he causes distress to mankind.

Jesus experienced loneliness, but for a different reason because He often withdrew to desolate places to pray. In those times He communed with His Father in Heaven. However, Jesus’ final loneliness appeared when He was crucified. It was there, pinned to a Roman cross, taking onto Himself the sins of the whole world, that His Father turned His back on His only Son. We read, “Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”” (Mark 15:34). But that loneliness experience was not for long because Jesus said, “Yes, I came from the Father into the world, and now I will leave the world and return to the Father” (John 16:28), and then, “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” (Act 1:11).

We pilgrims will never be lonely because of Jesus. He is the Friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24), and He has promised never to leave us. Matthew 28:20b, “ … And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age“. Every time we sit down to pray there is a minimum of four people there – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and ourselves. Feeling lonely today? Then pick up the phone and call a dear friend, or call Jesus Himself. He is alive and waiting your call.

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for always being close to us, an ever present Help in times of trouble and loneliness. Help us to look around for those who are lonely and neglected, so that we can bring the sunshine of Your hope into their lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you.”
1 Peter 4:3-4 NLT

Friendships develop wherever people meet. At school, college or university. In the workplace. In the gym or at a sporting event. An endless list, but there is something implicit within humans that naturally makes friendships. A common factor is often the lifestyle or interests of the people who meet. I can remember making friends with a lad at school who had similar interests to me. We took apart an old valve portable radio to see if we could repair it. We failed, unfortunately, but forged a friendship in the process. We human beings are relational people and it is very rare to find someone who can be fully satisfied with just their own company.

Peter wrote that friendships made while enjoying a mutual debauched lifestyle would not survive if one of the friends became a Christian. Straight away, the bonds that previously sustained the relationship would cease to exist, because the believing friend would stop doing the things that previously held them together. A friendship founded on a shaky foundation of course, and one that could not survive for long if the mutual focus was removed. In Peter’s letter, “godless people” were enjoying wild living that was inherently sinful. They enjoyed a hedonistic leisure time, seeking enjoyment by sinful means. Peter was writing to believers who were once part of this lifestyle and who were now being slandered by their “former friends”. I’m sure many of us pilgrims who became believers in adulthood, know exactly how they would have felt.

The Christian faith is counter-cultural and those who are not believers resent what being a Christian means. Worldly people know of course what is right and what is wrong. There is enough of God within them through their consciences to discern the difference. So when they find someone they know, who was perhaps quite close to them, and who has decided to turn their back on their mutual lifestyles of parties and drinking, of “immorality and lust”, and other sinful ways, they resent them. Their believing friend becomes a former friend because what had united them has been removed.

Jesus had friends. We can read about them in John 15. It’s in that wonderful chapter where Jesus describes Himself as the True Vine. He expresses His love for His disciples, a love that isn’t natural in form and content, but it is the same love which Jesus’s Father loves Him with. John 15:9, “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love“. And verse 12 continues, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you“. Then, in John 15:14-15 we read, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me“.

We can only aspire to be friends with Jesus if we are prepared to do what he has asked us to do, which is to love our friends as Jesus has loved us. I’m sure we agree that if our former friends, those who are still living a sinful lifestyle, are slandering us, it will be difficult to love them as Jesus loves us. But that is the mark of a Christian. To love the unlovely. To love our enemies. To have compassion on those heading for a lost eternity. In our own strength we have no chance of fulfilling this commandment. But with God’s help it is very possible. When slandered by the Jewish authorities, Jesus didn’t respond. Instead, He even prayed for the men who were hammering the nails into His hands and feet. That’s love.

Dear Father God. Please help us to befriend those who cause us harm. By so doing we do Your will. Amen.