Great Plains Daily Devotional for 7/15/2019

Proverbs 27:9-10 

Oil and incense make the heart glad,
    and the sweetness of friends comes from their advice.
Don’t desert your friend or a friend of your family;
    don’t go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes.
    Better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.

C.S. Lewis wrote “Friendship … is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” Friends are important to us for more reasons than we can name. The friendships we cultivate throughout our lives can sustain us in good times and bad. Friends can be family members we have known all our lives or strangers we meet along life’s journey who become “family” to us.

I value my friendships – whether they be those close by or people on Facebook I may never actually meet. My friends come from various parts and places of my life, as no doubt do yours. Some of my friends and I agree on matters religious and political. Others, not so much. But all of them are important to my life journey as I view them all as gifts from God.

I have noticed something interesting regarding Facebook as I look at the “friend suggestions” photos that show up each day. When I see a photo that says I have a dozen or more mutual friends with that person I know immediately that most of those people will be clergy or other church connections. But often there is a suggestion that lists only two mutual friends. These frequently turn out to be friends from very different and (I assumed) separate parts of my life. One may be a friend from high school or college (or a relative) and the other a former parishioner from many miles away or a clergy friend in another state.

When I encounter these mutual friendships, I am, of course, curious as to how these friends are connected. But I also am reminded that I am connected to a wide network of people who have been put in my life by God, that they are a sweetness to me that makes my heart glad, and that whether or not we are of the same blood we can count on one another. I thank God for the “beauties of others.”

Prayer for Reflection

2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20