×

Everyone needs a friend

PROFESSIONS OF FAITH

I just got done praying with a guy and was walking back to my truck when I saw another gentleman walking across the street.

I said, “Hello sir, how are you?”

He looked at me and said, “Do I know you?”

I said, “I am not sure, you look familiar. What’s your name?”

He told me his name, and we started a conversation. I asked him what he was up to and a couple other questions and only received a bunch of one-word answers. He then asked me a question with a suspicious countenance, “What are you doing? Are you just going around talking to people?”

In that moment and still to this very day, his words hit me like a brick.

“Are you just going around talking to people?”

As his words moved from my head to my heart, I almost started to cry. This was my response to his question, “People don’t do that, do they?”

He said, “No! People don’t do that.”

I could tell by his response that it had been a long time since he had received a simple hello. He was so suspicious and paranoid that at one point he even asked me if I was a probation officer.

Mother Teresa said, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

This echoes the words in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

What if you turned off the news for an hour and loved your neighbor? What if you asked the cashier how she was doing instead of complaining about how long the line is? What if you prayed instead of having an argument over the president? What if you lived by the words of Jesus when he said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.”

What if?

Maybe it would be an end to loneliness, isolation, depression and suicide. Maybe it would save your kid, your father, your gram, your brother or your sister from feeling alone.

Jesus said to His disciples in Mathew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world — like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. If that was His mission, then it also is ours.

If we’re going to see an end in overdoses, loneliness and depression, then Christians need to take the baskets off their heads and shine the light of God’s redeeming love into the world of the lost and lonely.

One encounter with the King can change everything.

Everyone needs a friend. Maybe we should start by saying, “Hi.”

¯¯¯

Travis Habbershon is the youth pastor at New Life Church in Burnham.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $3.92/week.

Subscribe Today