I Want to be a Safe Friend

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. (John 3:29 NIV)

I just can't pull myself away from this verse yet. It is compelling to me and keeps opening up important things that my heart really wants and needs to learn. I sense deeply that I crave to have this experience for myself, this relationship with the Bridegroom, this joy that is full, complete and satisfying.

Too often I have tried to get some of this joy by stepping in between the bride and the Bridegroom. I have been jealous of the potential joy between them and have misappropriated the affections of the bride for myself. It has always ended in disaster repeatedly but I seem to be a slow learner. What I am seeing here is that finding genuine joy that will really last and will not disappoint my heart needs to be found in a third-party relationship with the bride and Groom.

Satan has lied to my heart (no big surprise there) telling me that if I don't receive affections the way I want them that I can't have any at all. But that is not true. The alternative to receiving affections the wrong way is not a complete break in relationships with the bride of Christ. Jesus never says that I can't be very close friends with His bride, all those whom He is attracting to Himself. In fact, He wants to make me into a much more effective messenger of His attractions and allurements and inducements to help others see the real truth about His beauty much more clearly so they too can let go of the lies about Him that prevent them from trusting His heart. He wants to make me a safe friend to deal in the arena of people's hearts and be able to pass along His love notes for them without having my own emptiness complicate my relationship with them.

So it comes back again to my own need to relate to Jesus personally as part of the bride myself and be filled up with His personal attentions and affections so that my own heart enjoys that needed peace, satisfaction and joy in His presence. The more my own heart can rest, relax and be ravished in His love the safer I will be in sharing the same opportunity with others to experience the same relationship with Him. It is not safe to offer to others an intimacy with God that I am not yet experiencing myself. When I do then I may be venturing into the arena of hypocrisy which is a very hazardous place to live. The gospel that I offer to others must be the same gospel that is healing and saving my own heart, soul and mind.

To be an effective friend of the Bridegroom, a safe friend that can be trusted to speak convincingly of this intimate love relationship to others, I have to be experiencing the joys of being a responsive bride myself. It is the most effective witness program that demonstrates the effects of joy, intimacy, trust and peace when I am living from a heart captured by the affections of God myself. Just talking about it without really experiencing it can be very fascinating and intriguing but it will not have the compelling force that experiencing it myself will have.

So my heart yearns for a much deeper encounter and an ongoing, deepening love affair with my Savior and my God. I have long been tired of religion that talks all around these subjects (or worse yet, disdained them) but has generally brought me more confusion than peace. My heart craves to be loved and to respond in genuine, spontaneous love with a being that really knows how to do it right. And by what I've heard we are all hard-wired to feel this way and we know that when we finally get completely honest about our hearts.

Father, Jesus, I plead with You to draw me much deeper into this intimacy of love in my heart that I hear more and more about. You know my heart far better than I can ever understand and You know how intense these longings are beyond the ability of any words to express. I have repressed these feelings and yearnings for all of my life because every time I try to deal with them I get deeply wounded. Fear has overtaken most of the atmosphere in my heart and surrounds the memories of these bad encounters.

But Your Word says that perfect love expels all fear. That is what I really want to experience, not just once or twice but on a continual and unbroken basis. I plead with you to heal me from my wicked spirit of faultfinding and negative thinking and the many lies I still believe about You. Replace all of this with real life and the love that can only be found in Your heart and in close fellowship with You. Make me a safe and reliable friend of Yours to awaken interest and longing in the hearts of many others who may see what You are starting to do in my heart. Train me, especially my heart, to know how to work in close proximity to the hearts and affections and fears of others who are being drawn to you without becoming overwhelmed and improperly entangled in them myself.

Keep my heart full of Your love and help me to keep my mirror clean so that Your light and love can be reflected through me without distortion. I know this is a very big order, but I also believe You are an even bigger God capable of anything. And by what I have been learning this is the kind of thing You love to specialize in. So continue the work of transformation You are doing in me and keep me close to Your heart. Protect me from the hateful, deceptive and vicious attacks of the great liar who has spoiled everything You have created here. Grow me into full maturity in Christ as I learn to rest fully in Your arms.

I ask all of this in the authority and name of Jesus Christ, the one who came to reveal the real truth about Your heart and allowed us to torture and kill Him without ever resisting or getting defensive. Thank-you so much for what You are revealing about Yourself through Jesus. I am learning that all of this is taking place to vindicate Your reputation and character in the final outcome. Keep me close to You so that I can be part of the great cloud of authentic and truthful witnesses so that Your reputation can be fully honored.