A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
– Walter Winchell
I saw the above this morning and thought, that's awesome and true. I don't know about you, Dear Reader, but I think that's a great quote. What makes it even more so to me is who said it. In case you are unfamiliar with Walter Winchell, he was a so-called journalist in the early to mid 1900s. I say so-called, because the gossip column he wrote doesn't really qualify as journalism. Successful, yes. Journalism, no. In fact, he was successful to the point that he became the first syndicated gossip columnist and gained a reputation for coercion, blackmail and destroying the reputations of people he disliked. When he died 11 months after I was born, only his daughter attended his funeral.
Here is a man who made his living and gained fame destroying lives. Even though he was famous, no one showed up at his funeral, not even just to gawk. Only his daughter came. What a lonely life he must have lived. And it makes me wonder who his friend was. There must have been someone who walked into his life and stuck around, perhaps preceding him in death. Or maybe his daughter was the friend. But this was a man who had the world walk out him, and something in his experience led him to understand the great value of a friend who embraces you when the whole world forsakes you.
No one fits that description of friendship better than Jesus. He will receive us and embrace us, even if father and mother forsake us. If we have alienated every acquaintance and burned the bridges of every relationship. Or if we are twisting ourselves into knots, living in constant dread that the mask is going to fall and break, and then everyone will know who we really are and what we're really like, and they will hate and reject us. Even if we ourselves are consumed by self hatred and would walk out on ourselves if we could, Jesus will never leave us. In fact, no matter how horrible and messed up and broken we may be before coming to know Him, Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts asking to be allowed to walk in when others would walk out.
And the amazing thing is, He knows what it looks like inside us. He knows our true motives, all the dirt and shallow buried skeletons in our closets. He knows the real us that we even hide from ourselves to the best of our ability. And still the Spirit says come. Daddy knows you exactly as you are, even better than you know yourself, and He loves you as you are, not as you should be. That's the truth before you enter into relationship with Him, and that's still the truth after the journey has begun. He knows the truth about how little our hearts have changed, how selfish and self centered we still are and how far we still have to go to be righteous and loving like Jesus. He knows every thought, motive, action and reaction that would have others and us saying and you call yourself a Christian? if it were known, that make us look like hypocrites. His response is to assure us that His mercies are new every morning, promising never to abandon us to our own efforts, giving sufficient grace and forgiveness, and calling us to return. Jesus is not waiting to beat us up or zap us with lightning for falling short of even our own standards. He is eagerly awaiting the chance to show us His love for us, to give us healing and comfort and freedom from our own natures and sin, to transform us into the best us that we can be, and to apply the laying down of His life to us.
That's how Jesus described the kind of friend He was. The man who would lay down His life for His friends. Then He said even My enemies are My friends, and I lay down my life for the worst of you. If you've lived in the bondage of addiction, you have secrets and things you absolutely hate about yourself. I know I sure did, and I never met a fellow slave who didn't. The idea of exposing the darkness of our past, mind and motives to light is a terrifying thing. But the truth is that the Light of the world already knows them, and still He is walking in as far into your life as you will allow. Things I whispered to one or two and prayed they wouldn't reveal in the early days of recovery I now boldly proclaim without fear. It slowly stopped scaring me, once I came to that place where I saw how my experience could benefit others and that Daddy loved truly loved me.
Even if you truly deserve to die friendless and not to have anyone show up at your funeral (hey, some of us do...., like me without what God has done in and for me), There is One who will gladly walk in to your life if you'll let Him. And the great thing is, He loves you as you are but also enough not to leave you that way. He will make you new and set you free, and will cause you to be someone who learns to love and be a friend worth having, a friend to the faithful and the friendless. A life with Jesus as your friend, not as your religion but as your real and closest friend, is a life worth living, no matter what's going on around you.
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