Friends are friends forever...

   Here lately, I've been near the center of a unhealthy whirlwind of jealousy, envy, and hate.  I don't know what else to call it but that.  I think the people involved woud prefer to call it something else, but there really isn't anything that it can be attributed to, in my humble opinion.

The meat of the matter is that people stop communicating, familiarity breeds comtempt, the devil creeps into the ensuing chasm of chaos, and his hatred takes root.  In turn the people who once held each other as brothers committed to the same precepts and aims of a ministry are driving the people around them to seek another comfortable place to minister to themselves and the other hurting souls around them.

It's inevitable that people have differing opinions on practically everything; c'est la vie.  God made us with minds akin to His and the free will to employ them as we see fit.  What differentiates the devout Christian is that their eye is on the prize of eternal life with Christ.  Everything else that doesn't lead you and those around you to that end is inconsequential. 

Even the "arguments" that we have about what matters in this race have to take place in an attitude of prayer and with His Love in our hearts.  Otherwise, we're just paving the way for further strife and the diversionary tactics of demons.

I remember reading something about fraternal correction in this great book called THE BIBLE.  In Matthew 18, Jesus spells out how we are to approach the task of bringing a grievance to someone we hold as a believer.  And even later, we are told to forgive and forgive and forgive... Most likely because we are in need of the same forgiveness.

To illustrate my point, I lost a beloved relative and another close friend this year and I know many people who have suffered closer losses.  Fathers, mothers, brothers, etc. My prayers are constant for all those.

Even though I knew friends and relatives of my friend who were in constant argument with him, I knew he loved them.  Most of the time these disagreements came about because each person had different information and neither would consent that they may have been misinformed; other times it was just the grating of indiosyncracies in close proximity. 

Whatever the case, I knew my friend still loved those he fought with, especially family.  Even me.  I forgave him for every transgression I felt he had committed against me and I know he forgave me similarly.  We talked about everything as much as time allowed. And we could walk away in complete disagreement, but still the best of friends.  Because we loved each other as men of faith and therefore as friends.

That's probably the only way that friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them...