As I write this article, which is the first for some time - apologies reader - I am preparing to speak at a school in the morning, then to visit a grieving family to arrange their mothers funeral, before speaking at two church over the weekend. At the same time I have just completed writing a devotional magazine, called the voice, that our church takes each month and have had several conversations and meetings through the week.
This is not a blog designed to tell you that I am super busy, but rather that one thought has been mind throughout all of these activities. The conversations and meetings that I have been involved in seem to all be centered around groups of people disagreeing with each other. My study and writing has been focused on people with different mind sets and their attitudes to each other as well. And all through this week I cannot shake off the story of the Good Samaritan, which keeps on popping into my mind.
Here is a link to a modern version of the story that I have put on our church website, taken from the Junior section of our Voice magazine.
www.selstonchurchofchrist.org.uk/voice.htm#Junior%20Voice
Whilst its not the most amazing piece of writing ever, I think it gets the point across fairly well.
There is an regularly used piece of advice, when wondering how to act in certain circumstances, which suggests we ask ourselves, "What would Jesus do?" When doing this I am often reminded that when Jesus was on this earth in human form, he
spent his time with all sorts of people - regularly being told he
shouldn't waste his time with that kind of people. And the most amazing
thing to note is that he didn't ask people to change first, he accepted
them just as they were.
So let's come back to the question posed in the title of this blog; why can't we call just be friends? I suppose the answer in all honesty if we think about every country, people group, race and religion, I guess there is very little chance that we are all simply going to shakehands and become friends.
But that doesn't take away from the fact that we and our world desperately need us to try. And with God's help, I believe, that when we start to accept each other as Jesus does, we can begin to move closer to becoming friends after all.
