True Friendship
The song You write upon my heart is pure loveliness, loveliness;
Thy lover still and peaceable in Your presence.
Looking upon Your face, gazing into Your eyes,
The inner room, the chamber of Your love.
You are altogether lovely, altogether lovely,
You are the Lover of my soul.
You are altogether lovely, altogether lovely,
Oh Lover of my soul.
These are the words to a song that God gave to me since I became a part of the Church—the place we call Rose Creek Village. We are absolutely amazed at the nearness of our God. He makes Himself so real to us every day that all we can do is try to find new ways to express our gratefulness. We see Him in the sky, the trees, and flowers; we feel His breath in the Wind; feel His warmth in the Sun; we know Him in the quiet places of our own hearts, the place where He speaks to us to comfort or correct; and we know His ways and thoughts through the ancient writings of Scripture. But we know Him in an even more dynamic way than all of these: we know Him through the intimacy we have with each other.
When I say intimacy I mean more than oneness, honesty, or camaraderie. I mean a true knowing of another by the revelation of the spirit of God that is so real, so close, that God sometimes has to give you the courage to enter into it. It is so freeing that it breaks strongholds of insecurity or self-consciousness.
The unity of the Spirit: we’ve all heard that term so much that we don’t really know what it means. Christians are told to walk in the unity of the Spirit with all denominations and all other Christians on the planet. That is one kind of unity. But the kind to which I am referring is more like a marriage. There is a commitment to hold each other up—through any and every struggle. There is an honesty that we are bound to walk in and speak into each other’s lives. That is what He has given us. That is what it means to walk in the unity of the Spirit.
So, the words to this song: the inner room, our Lover, and the loveliness of our God, is what we experience every day. There is a dual reality: I look into the face of the Father through my own spirit in communion with Him, and I look up, and there is my sister, looking past my eyes into my soul—and I behold His loveliness. By the voice of my friend, who knows me better than I know myself, I can hear the words, “Peace be still,” spoken in other, more human words of course, and I experience the gift of peace that floods my soul. I can reach out my arms to hug a frightened young boy, and know that my hug assured his heart that God loves him. That is what it means to be the Body of Christ.
This is the Life that He has given us. This is the intimacy that I believe He and His disciples had together. But this intimacy is not without cost. There is a facing of your fears, allowing your Family to know you, even when you think they could never love you if they really saw the “real you”. There is a learning to trust others’ assessment of you, believing that they love you even when they are exhorting you and calling you up higher.
But the fruit is a Love that comes down from Heaven, floods your heart, pushes out self-awareness and insecurity, and allows you to love other precious ones with the same love with which you were loved.
The following is a writing that was done by a group of our ladies for Chasah, Neharah, and Shayla’s passage this past October,that puts into words some of what I am trying to portray.
It is not enough that we should live,
But we must live together.
It is not enough that we live together
Except that we live within each other.
Inside each heart there is a deep place.
A place filled with the essence of
who we are in God’s eyes.
To drink from that deep place in each other is our greatest desire.
It is also our greatest need;
that we would experience the intimacy
of true friendship,
to really and truly know one another
after the Spirit…
But I am afraid!
Do not fear… only believe!
I am too proud.
Humble yourself, it is life you seek!
I have been hurt.
Be vulnerable yet again! Risk everything to know your friend!
I am unnoticed again and again.
Be the first to love even as your Master loved you.
She is afraid of me.
Be tender, and compassionate, but do not leave your sister alone.
I am unworthy.
Intimacy is not earned nor deserved. It is a gift of love.
Remember each heart is sacred and to be given entrance is to be admitted to a holy place. No one can fathom the richness found within a sister’s heart!
By His mercy, He has come to live with us, and has made us into His body—an organism in which all members truly are part of the others. The intimacy we are experiencing with God is made visible in the relationships we have with each other. And, in parallel, the intimacy we have with each other, partaking of Christ in each one, brings us into a closer walk with our Father. We feel His love from each other—as we are His hands and feet, a true expression of His person. And our greatest desire is to share this amazing love with the whole world. We pray that He would show us more how to demonstrate His love to each other and to those in our community.
Posted on Mar 9, 04:04 PM | Categorized under Articles—
