With seven billion people walking around, how is it that God could put someone geographically close enough that understands your soul?
And yet, He does.
Danny Baggott and I bumped into each other at church many years ago and the spiritual symbiotic strains began to develop into a lasting friendship.
On the more important of life, we were different. He was a Yankee fan from The Bronx and I was a Mets fans from the suburbs of Jersey. He was Irish through and through and I was Italian down to the last drop. He was taller and I was shorter.
But when it came to something as minor as God, we were two peas in a pod. Both of us wanted to devote our lives to God in some form of ministry. We both felt deeply when certain worship songs were played. When we prayed, we both might end up tasting the salt of our tears. When either one of us spoke of the Father-heart of God, we were wasted. And the Gospel of John still touches us all these years later.
When I was in supra-crisis in the middle of a tragic night, we met at a Denny’s and I could almost sense my pain was his. And on and on it goes.
God’s very hand puts lives together like pieces in a puzzle so the world sees the picture form of His goodness. And it’s not like God is confused about which piece goes where or that one has dropped under the table and He is forever scratching his head wondering where the missing piece went.
He’s got seven billion pieces and He just happens to be skillful enough to know which ones are to be joined together.
Viewed like that, it shouldn’t puzzle any of us why He’s given you friends.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: It’s no coincidence when we find that true friend(s). The portal of truly understanding another’s heart is, in part, practice for uniting us with God.
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother…He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harms…Greater Love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Proverbs 18:24 NIV, Proverbs 13:20, John 15:13 NIV