Saturday, September 19, 2015

Girl Talk #2: Cleaning Out the Friend's List

Last Saturday I started a series called "Girl Talk" in which I will be discussing some of the issues I see young women facing. The first blog of the series, The Ms. Independent Christian Woman, dealt with the need for Christian women to start young in building up themselves spiritually and in every other aspect of life. Today as I was preparing for this blog on friendship, I remembered that I have this analogy where I always compare my life to a house in which the different rooms of this "house" represents different stages of friendship. This analogy may seem a bit strange, but it is actually Biblical. To explain further, the Holy Word of God says,

" The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands"-Proverbs 14:1

Simply put, the Word of the Lord is saying that if I, as a woman, desire to be wise, then the things I do with my hands should be things that generate growth and progress in my house; however, if I am a foolish woman, the things I do with my hands will tear down or pull down my house. To establish the fact that the word "house" can refer to both the physical house and to our lives we have to remember that we were told that we are the temple of the Lord and that the Spirit of God dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16) meaning we carry the very presence of the Lord with us as we live daily. If the Spirit of the Most High God dwells in us, the question that naturally follows to me is, "Who else is dwelling in us"? This is where my analogy of my life being a house and the different rooms in that house representing the different levels of friendship comes into play. When it comes to cleaning our our lives and our friendship list, we must first establish the standards for each room of our houses so that we know what belongs and what God is asking us to release. In a typical house you have the front porch or front door, the general living home, a kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and a master bedroom.





1. The Front Porch/ Front Door Friendship

"Owe no one anything except to love one another; for he who loves another has fulfilled the law"-Romans 13:8

The front porch/front door friendship is the most basic level of friendship required of us by God. The Bible in Romans reminds us that our only debt in life is love. By the standard of God you owe love to everyone you come across during your lifetime. To owe someone means that you are required to pay therefore God is letting us know that loving people is not a recommendation or a suggestion, but it is a requirement! I called this the front door friendship because this type of love does not necessary mean you must invite the person into your house. If someone passes by my house in Houston and I am at the front door, naturally I will greet the person, but because I do not know the person personally, I can not invite the person in. Front door friendship means that as you meet people throughout your journey on earth, you wave and smile, you extend pleasantries and you help if it is in your power to do so. The summary of this level of friendship is found in Proverbs 3: 27-30 which says,"Do not withhold good from those whom it is due when it is in the power of your hands to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, "Go, and come back tomorrow I will give it" when you have it with you. Do not devise evil against your neighbor; for he dwells by you for safety's sake. "



2. The General Living room and Bedroom Friendship

" A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother"- Proverbs 18:24

There are two levels of a friendship described above. The first is the friendly, lovey-dovey type friendship while the other describes a friendship that has been tested and shown to be real. The general living room of a house is usually welcomed to whoever comes over to the house. There's nothing too special about the living room, but it is a step deeper on the friendship scale than the front door greetings. In this level of friendship you've established that the people that are welcome to sit and chat with you are people you are comfortable with and people that you know to some degree therefore this level of friend can be likened to acquaintances. Typical conversations with acquaintances are usually surface conversations such as: " the weather is beautiful today", "oh my family is great! Thank you so much for asking!, "school sucks!," "How is work going?". There's a clear boundary to the friendship wherein matters of the heart are not discussed indepthly. The bedroom friendship is what I consider the first true level of friendship. Unlike the front door or general living room, the bedroom of a house is typically more private. When visitors come over, it usually takes a while before they see the inside of your personal bedrooms. This is to illustrate the latter part of Proverbs 18:24 about the friend that sticks closer than a brother. In the bedroom of life you are able to open up to people and share the issues that bother you. While the front porch and living room may always be kept clean for visitors, the bedroom represents the true condition of your life. They know you are not the most organized, they see your hurt, they know what your prayer points are. They are fewer than the number of people passing your front door or sitting in your living room, yet bedroom friendships know more than all of them combined.

3. The Master Bedroom Friendship

"Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life"- Proverbs 4:23

The master bedroom also contains whatever it is that you consider to be the most precious part of your life. By the name alone, a MASTER bedroom is the control room therefore whatever is your "God" will dwell in the master. Unlike the front door friendships, living room friendships, and bedroom friendships, there's only one master bedroom and God has instructed that we love Him with all of our hearts. There's no room for two masters in your life because even the Bible stated that you will love one and hate the other because it's impossible to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). The Master bedroom of a house belongs to the person who paid the most for that house. Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price to sit on the throne of your heart and with His own blood He purchased us with a price. It is then our responsibility to honor Him with our body/house (1Corinthians 6:20). Whoever dwells in the master bedroom owns the house.

Now that we know the rooms in our house, it is now our responsible to build it in a way that does not destroy us. The problem we face in life is that we do not understand the essence of friendship therefore we have the wrong people living in the wrong rooms of our lives. We've invited people into our lives that should have been greeted from the distance of our front porch. We've given the very best of ourselves and shared the most personal parts of ourselves with people who we should've sat in the living room and discussed the weather with. We've allowed people to overstay their welcome in our lives and given them authority that does not belong to them. Before we know it, we have a life full of people eating all the food in our kitchen, running up the electricity bill, using up the hot water in the bathroom, and basically draining us of our energy and our resources. It is time to clean out your friend's list. The Bible says, " wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all of your getting, get understanding" (Proverbs 4:7). Ask God for the wisdom to know who you need to walk through life without you. There are some friendships that are expired. It may have been good when you were 15 years or when you were a freshmen in college, but as a grown woman, it is no longer aligning with the vision God has given you.  Check the rooms of your life and ask God to take away anything and anyone that is not for your good. At the same time, pray and ask God to bring you godly friendships. It is possible to have people in your life that will not hurt you or seek your downfall. It is possible to have friends you can cry to and be vulnerable to because you know they will advise you and comfort you with the Word of God. Above all, check the master bedroom of your life. God is a friend and He cares about the state of your heart, but He can only heal your heart when He is in possession of it. Give up the control room to Him and He will help you build a drama-free house and keep you in perfect peace.
Yorkamazing <3

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Today's Memory Verse: John 15:13

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends"



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