Spiritual friendship

It is always refreshing to catch up with friends. Just had lunch with a friend yesterday - a meeting that went on till tea time! I find that nowadays I enjoy long talks with friends over lunch. So we have to find places where the crowd is not large, the place opens all afternoon and we can sit for as long as we wish without the waiters giving us hints about ordering more or that they are about to close. I have found a number of places in the PJ area which fit the bill. So it is that some of these lunch meetings last several hours. Usually this is because we have not met for some time and have a lot to catch up on. What is it that we have to talk about? Is it just idle talk and gossip that women are often connected with?

I would like to believe that this is not so. There is a form of friendship that lasts over the years and that is sustained by a spiritual bond, apart from other common interests. As Christians, do we take time to grow and develop such friendships? Are we willing to be open and vulnerable with at least a few others? I believe we do need such friends. People who are willing to lend a listening ear but more than that, are also helping us pay attention to God's movements in our lives. People who love enough to comfort us when we need it but also to challenge us to growth, to becoming the person God has made us to be.

Time together can be fruitful if we keep in mind several questions even as we talk about all the happenings in our lives. Questions such as How is your soul? How have you seen God at work in and through your life? What are you struggling with? What are you grateful for? Such questions help to bring us back to the core relationship in our lives: our relationship with God. All the events and experiences of our lives must finally come to the focal point that is God. How does he see these events and experiences? What does he seem to invite us to be (attitude) or to do (action) in the situation we find ourselves in? In this way, we avoid just complaining about our lives, about others, and treating God merely as a problem solver. Our relationship with God takes on new depth. Perhaps that is what it means to be increasingly conformed to the image of Christ.

I told my friend that there are some concerns that I have no 'answers' for. I have shared these with a couple of others. I know that I should now restrain myself from further comments which could easily become a 'grumbling' dissatisfaction. I have not 'heard' from God so far. That is not a bad sign. In fact, it tells me that I am still far from possessing inner quiet. There is much inner noise that prevents me from hearing his quiet voice. I may be quiet now externally, but the inner noise has not stopped. I realize how helpless I truly am and how dependent on God I am in this life-long process of spiritual transformation.