Some Friends Come and Go
Over the years I have had some marvelous friends. As a child, Larry Linnum was a good friend in Naperville Illinois. Then there was Carl Sielaff, who lived across the street in Naperville. He was fascinated with the weather and had purple gravel in his aquarium. In the Navy my best friend was QM2 Gary McIntyre.
As an adult I was blessed to have some wonderful friends when we lived in Milwaukee: Dr. Glenn Franke and Timler Olander were faithful friends. Both are now with the Lord. Some great, encouraging friends live far away. Danny Hobbs is one such friend. Then there are a host of friends in India. There are too many to list in this brief history.
Cindie is the Best of the Best
An Excellent Wife was Found…
I know more about Cindie today than I did 45 years ago. She was special in 1976 and she is even more special now. She is the Proverbs 31 woman in my life. She follows in the steps of her mother and my mother and her Lord. It is a blessing to have a wife that fits the pattern of Proverbs 31:10-12 “An excellent wife who can find? (Editorial note: I found her!) She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” Amen!
Proverbs 31:26-31 wraps up with the source of her wisdom: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.”
The Friend of Sinners
My friendship with and marriage to Cindie is a covenant promise: “until death us do part.” But I have an eternal friend who loves me from everlasting to everlasting. His friendship was very costly for him. He laid down his life. Here are three passages from people who knew Jesus and walked with him. They saw him as their best friend. They were sinners, but Jesus was a friend of sinners and he laid down his life for his friends. That is what he called the sinners who saw him and who believed what he said. Someday there will be a marriage supper of the Lamb. John’s book of Revelation talks about that.
“The Son of Man (Jesus) came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” Matthew 11:19
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:12-15
“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” James 4:4
All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version except as otherwise noted.
Know Your Flocks & Herds 