Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:35-39
I take great comfort from these verses lately. I have found myself quite alone in my walk with the Lord. But I am never out of the protective covering of God's love for me. God is all I need to keep pressing on.
Seemingly methodically, I have had friendships shaved away in one form or another. In some cases it is strictly a geographic separation. In others, and much more recently, the friendship has dissolved completely.
At first I was upset, deeply hurt, by the loss of what I had come to think of as my support group. I felt sorry for myself as I looked at what friends I did have were so many miles away. I thought I needed a solid friendship right here with me. Yet through all of these trails with my relationships God has been trying to teach me to REALLY depend on Him. I have finally realized that everything and everyone can be stripped away from me; and then what am I left with? God is all I have when all else is gone. Yet if I have not been relying on God alone for all things before these things are stripped away then my whole world is rocked. And boy was it ever! Yes, God showed me that I have been relying heavily on things and people instead of God. I praise Him for showing me each place where I have placed my trust in something other than Him.
I am no longer upset about losing my friendships. I am seeing Romans 8:28 working here. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for the good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
2 Corinthians 6:16 says What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God… An idol is anything you put before God. If I was really putting God at the top then I wouldn’t turn to other people or other things with my life happenings first. If I really held God in the highest position I would have turned to Him first. Instead I turned to my friends. I turned to a bottle of alcohol, convincing myself that it was the only way to calm down and get the relief from stress I so desperately needed.
These two things, alcohol and friends, were idols for me. I had fallen so far behind in my walk with the Lord because I invested more in my relationships with my friends than I did in my relationship with God.
You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. –Deuteronomy 6:14-15
My God is a jealous God. How I must have hurt Him by not turning to Him!!
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. –Psalm 25:16-18
This is what God wanted me to do all along. God wants me to always go to Him, for everything. Yet big or small, when any trial or stress came upon me I turned to a friend of a bottle. When it was taken away from me, when all I had left was God, only then did I realize He is all I ever needed.
I also believe He is trying to strengthen me, to strengthen my faith and trust in Him. These are troubling times we live in. I am seeing many of my brothers and sisters in Christ suffering similarly. Seems many of them are finding friendships falling away, even ones that have lasted decades. This is why I am sharing all of this right now. I know my Savior is returning very soon. I feel it will be sooner than many think. I think this is a time when God is testing His children. The more faith we have more we will be able to endure. Though Christ is coming again very soon, we must be able to endure the time before His return.
We crave companionship with others of like faith. Yet we must trust and believe that God really is all we need. This is the part of the narrow road that is so narrow that we must walk alone to continue on. God is our only companion when the road is this narrow. This is the time that all we can do for our brothers and sisters is done through prayer. We need to turn our full attention toward our relationship with God. By stripping us of any earthly crutch we are left to either lean completely upon God or fall into a deep pit of misery and despair. The only way to come out on the other side is with God. Do not fail to finish the final race my friends. The end is just around the corner.
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