Evendays

These last two days, I have been working in a company that is laying off employees. It’s the first time they’ve taken these kinds of measures in their 100 year history and it has been painful for their whole "family". 
I’m amazed: People are tough and have resources that go deep. The HR people have been [...]

Friendships are costly
John 15.13-15: Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that [...]

When speaking of the influence of false brothers and their sway on the Corinthian church, Paul quoted the O.T.:

Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.

In Christian friendship, we are not only loyal to each other, but we are also committed to holiness. As Tippens writes in his book, Pilgrim Heart, there is honor [...]

Can I be myself with you?
Good friends have the confidence to share who they really are… To take off their masks. A true friend loves at all times, according to Solomon. In adversity, trouble, pain, struggle and separation, a true friend is there to listen as you expose your sin.
James 5:16: Therefore confess your sins [...]

A second point that Tippens makes in his book, Pilgrim Heart, is that David and Jonathan could count on each other.
1 Samuel 20:14-17: [Jonathan said]: But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your [...]

I was surprised by the chapter in Tippens’ book, Pilgrim Heart, that he considered friendship a “walking” spiritual discipline. Then I glanced at a book on disciplines that a colleague gave me a few years ago entitled: The disciplines of a Godly Man (Hughes) and in the first section there was a chapter on friendship. [...]

Last Saturday evening My Irish Buddy Paul (MIBP) invited me to the VIP section of the UBS Arena, which is actually an outdoor theater where they’ve set up a huge screen to watch the Euro 2008 matches. Why did MIBP invite me? His wife doesn’t like European Football. Yes, I know. Hard to believe. Why [...]

We picked up Jack at the airport late Monday. He’d been in Spain visiting Juan Monroy, an old friend. He wanted to come see Wife and me, even though it took going through London Heathrow, a major mess these days. Love knows no bounds…
Jack has meant much to our family, especially to Wife’s parents. He [...]

Barbara is in her 60’s. We first met her when the grapes got ripe. She’s lived in Lausanne forever but 35 percent of our conversation is in Italian. (0% mine. 70% hers.) Wife has become her “best friend”. The door bell will ring and it’ll be Barbara asking for “la donna bella”. (I think that [...]

Last week the mailperson rang twice. Once on Wednesday and once on Thursday. Sherri from TN had sent us two cardboard boxes loaded with food that we can’t find here, or just can’t justify springing for. It was completely unexpected, and the Doritos are already gone…
There were Reeses pieces, pumpkin in cans and pre-prepared graham-cracker [...]