If I am your friend, I will ALWAYS be your friend, even when you are not mine.
I might go away when I feel I am not wanted.
I might tell you things you don't want to hear, because it is the truth.
I might even tell you when you stink, or if that dress is ugly, or when I think you are messing up...
But I will NEVER stop being your friend.
I may not agree with something you are doing, but I don't stop being your friend. I just sit back and wait for you to finish what you are doing (and yeah, I like saying, "I told you so")
I believe in real love. I believe in TOUGH love. And I believe in lasting love.
If you ever find yourself in need of someone to talk to, someone to hug you, or just hang with and be quiet and enjoy the air...
Today, I am helping my friends move into their new home.
It is an exciting day!
One they have waited on for a long time!
I am so proud for them!
I feel so blessed. I just watched my friend's faces when they walked into their new apartment for the first time. The Apartment manager even helped them out by giving them dishes, blankets and an extra bed to sleep on (because there are two of them) and a couch and love seat and coffee table and kitchen table.
I cannot imagine the happiness they feel inside. I see it on their faces, and that is worth it all!
No more sleeping in a wet and moldy tent at a homeless camp. Now they will be warm and comfortable. They are already making plans for the future.
I'm so happy for them I could just bust.
I remember what it was like for me, when I was once where they are. God sent me help...I'm just paying it forward. And, I think I have two great friends for life. I thank God for that experience. It's the reason I felt so blessed today.
My son just posted a quote on his timeline that hit the point dead on:
"To realize that liars do not fear the truth if there are enough liars.. The devil is just one man with a plan. But evil, true evil, is a collaboration of men."
Quoted from Mulder of The X Files (Season 9, episode 19, "The Truth")
When God created the Angels, He did not want mindless robots. The Angels, according to Biblical Lore, became complacent in their existence, until ONE Angel, Lucifer (AKA Satan) challenged the status quo and caused chaos to erupt in Heaven, thus forcing God to remind His children that He was not only God, but their Creator, and that He loved them enough not to let them destroy all He had created for them.
Thus, the earth was born, and man was created. It was to prove to the Angels how much, and with what determination that God loved. It was with the premise that the Angels were to "get right" or "get left". He didn't just snap His fingers and say, "enough, go to hell, devil!" and leave it at that. He wanted the Angels to understand WHY He was making that decision, so He would not have to take their free will from them.
And, He wanted Lucifer to understand as well -- but Lucifer was too rebellious and too proud to admit any wrong-doing. He had power (given to him by God), and he knew how to use it. Why did he need God? Why did any of them need God?
God laid out a plan, in which mankind was the creation, He was the Creator, and free will was in effect. In his quest for knowledge, man set about making the same mistakes Lucifer had made.
And Satan is heard daily, laughing in the background, while God patiently waits for his children to realize the error of their ways and call on Him to deliver them -- because they choose to.
God knew that one day this lesson would have to have a point. He knew that this lesson would have to be learned in order for free will to survive. So, He sent Jesus to show all of creation how much He was willing to give them. His only son. His greatest Creation.
Love in the flesh.
Lucifer/Satan had succeeded in turning the hearts of many angels and many men by his logical and seemingly rational questions against God's judgment and will for their existence. He is still working toward that today.
Soon, He will be stopped, because God has already announced that this is only temporary. Soon, He will clean up the mess Lucifer made, and expect those who are left to trust Him alone as God, rather than themselves.
After all, they were created for HIS glory, not their own.
He wants to show us love, but we have to want it. We have to reach for it, we have to practice it with as much patience and charity and joy as He gives us to do it with, in the face of those who would fight us tooth and nail to be more than God has made or allowed them to be.
And, when many rebellious men work together, there is chaos, eventually, on a scale that only God can fix.
Sure, He could have just created Lucifer and not given him free will. He could have sat him on a shelf until He needed the beautiful angel to do something for Him. It would have been empty and boring -- and God didn't want empty and boring. Have you ever played with a robot? Have you ever tried to tell a computer how you feel and felt the love that a computer can give you back? Has a computer ever stood up for you, or been willing to die for you? A computer only has what information is given it by it's creator, or programmer. It doesn't learn on it's own. It doesn't exist where it is not wanted or needed. It is a tool.
God wanted friends, not tools.
John 15
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
How would you feel if you had no choice? Strike that, you wouldn't. One would do good to realize that without free will is non-existence as an original individual. One might as well be part of Star Trek's "Borg" without free will.
