I got up Thursday morning at my usual 5 AM time. I walked out to the kitchen and there next to the waiting coffee pot were two cups. There had been three cups there for a week, but my friend Patty had gone home the day before and her cup was missing. It was a reminder of friendship, and it was a reminder of separation.
I was also reminded of the Scripture in Proverbs 17:17a: “A friend loves at all times.” [HCSB]
Patty and I did not do a lot, not a lot to do during a COVID fear-and virus pandemic. We ate out a couple times, brought food in other times. We did visit a couple furniture stores (looking for that elusive dresser). We watched some football and baseball on TV. Mostly we talked, we remembered past good times, and we laughed.
Thursday morning, I was exhausted and both happy and sad. Happy that there had been three cups by that coffee pot each morning for almost a week, and sad that on Thursday there were only two.
I am so thankful for friends. There is something special about people who love you across the decades because they choose to do so. They like being around you; they share memories with you. God graciously gives us friends who “love at all times.”
But, then God also calls us friends. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” [John 15:15 NKJV]
Jesus was preparing His disciples for His upcoming departure. He knew the cross was just around the corner. He knew that He would not be with them physically as He had been for nearly three years. He wanted them to know that they were not just servants who would do His bidding, they were friends. He had given them the things He, Himself, had heard and received from the Father. They, as His friends, would now testify to the world about the love of God.
That “friendship” with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is alive and well in us today. Amen & Amen.
