Love and Brotherhood

At one point this year, I was talking with my friend, Ryan, over Facebook when I asked him how I could become closer with other Christian guys. I had asked him about his thoughts on this a few months ago as I was questioning if I will ever become close with another guy who also loves God. This past week, he made a response to my question through a long email, and the passages that he recommended me to meditate on were as follows:

• 1 Samuel 20 (David and Jonathan's oath of friendship under the sight of God)
• Proverbs 27 (wise expressions about love, family and friendships)
• 1 Corinthians 13 (Paul explaining about the character of a Godly love)

I found that while 1 Samuel 20 portrays a great example of friendship between two close friends (who were guys), 1 Corinthians 13 seemed to pop out more to me. I still find it a bit hard to explain why, but it seems to be a more heavily focused passage, and that it was something on which I needed to reflect. Another particular thing that came to my attention was Proverbs 27:10 (see below).

"Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,  and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you—better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away."

I guess that, based on these readings, I still have trouble with love. I guess it could have something to do with my difficulty to fully accept myself. I don't know why, but I find that as I get older, I feel more of the pressure to be like other guys (typical gender stereotypes). I try to go through life, but you keep hearing that you're supposed to be this or that. The thing is, I'm not so hugely into cars, I'm not a sports super fan, I don't even obsess over sex and girls like guys normally do.

I still tend to question God as to why he allowed me to be born with Autism as it tends to act more like a curse in both the "job world" and the "guy world" (which both co-exist as though they are one and the same; again, this is just my way of explaining things from my point of view). Because the main impairments caused by this disorder are my delayed speech and the fact that I need time to think things through before speaking. But the only thing I have going for me as an advantage is that I am often more focused on some things rather than others. Hopefully, I'll be able to get over this hurdle in my life.

Chances are, I'm not alone in these kinds of struggles: there are probably many Christian guys like me who are having trouble in making and maintaining strong friendships with other Christian guys. I agree that it's not easy, especially since I'm expressing about my thoughts. I think what might work for guys like us in being closer and more trusting with our Christian brothers is what Ryan had said to me in the email message: 

"As for advice? I would say, find a friend you think you can trust, and tell him you want to be a brother in CHRIST for him. Don't be clingy, but just say, 'Let's be there to encourage each other in our walk with God'. From my experience when you consciously make that decision then you focus a lot more on it. Pray, envision, minister with, and confess sin to brothers you can trust. The Bible asks this."

I hope that any of this helps somebody as I am also going through this. I find that expressing these struggles and lessons allows me to remain humble and to remind me, as well as everybody else, that we are all human and need God's love and grace as he conducts his work on us and through us. It's great to be writing about real life rather than some fantasy sometimes.

Peace be with you and keep it real with Jesus!

-Alex

Being a Safe, Faithful Servant and a Supportive, Spiritual Friend

So, the past little while had me looking through a couple of things that I should keep into mind. What I noticed from this author in the portion of the book that I was reading the past couple of weeks was that people do want to talk about God and spirituality, but it's hard to know who is safe to talk with about these things. This was rather peculiar to me. What he was saying was that not every is easy to be trusted, which I understand quite well. I still have trouble trusting certain people depending on how they behaved around me. For me, I prefer having someone come up and actively listen and allow me to think and decide for myself instead of forcing a bunch of stuff down my throat. And that's kind of what the author was getting at.

Another thing that I noticed was something that we often talk about but don't always practice: we need to practice serving to others, and that can be done by identifying a physical need without expecting something spiritual to come out from this. If we were to expect that to come each time, then what's the point of serving? So if someone is feeling down, the best thing to do is to nicely approach the person, and actively listen to what's going on with that person. Just don't do it in a way that may appear to be creepy. Also, we need to be considerate about how we act and how we see faith. Faith should be something that drives you more into learning something, an adventure in its own right; it doesn't need to be used as an excuse or copy-paste answer to everything that is done through some of the acts under the name of God. God also called us to serve others and he blessed us so that we can bless others through him, just like his promise with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). This, I thought, was rather cool because it means that whatever's we do is not for our own pleasure, but for the blessing of others that is also pleasing to God.

Another good thing to note is that it's better to be an active listener and ask questions to get your friend thinking instead of hashing up answers all the time, and that we can help give space by allowing our spiritual friends to check out churches by their choice rather than always inviting them to your particular church (it could damage your friendship, so not pushing this is allowing space for your friend). However, sometimes going to church may not be a good idea for your friend. Also, asking questions allows the friend to think further and reflect. As Brian D. McLaren said, "As long as people keep thinking, they're giving room for God to work in their lives." I find that he's right in saying this because people need to encounter God for themselves, though having a community of spiritual people can help facilitate the encounter a bit.

If there's anything that I've noticed to have a struggle with, it's faith. How Brian puts it is like a flame on a candle that needs to be encouraged and supported in order to shine brighter and warmer and more consistently. We sometimes question whether or not our faith is real, but I feel that we all just need a little nudge from God itself to reassure our faith and to give us strength to reassure our friends about the same. Brian, as I have read from him so far, stated that having doubt can be holy as we are seeking for truth. It is this truth that leads us to faith and understanding.

So my take-home message is this: try to be helpful, faithful and supportive with your friend, and if always remember that God is right there with you to strengthen you. A verse that I tend to resonate with for this is Philippians 4:13, which states: "I can do all things through Him that gives me strength" (NIV). As long as we remember that God will strengthen us, then we will be able to do whatever it is that we are called to do.

Take care,

Alex