God knows what He is doing. This is as true when things are good as when things are going terribly bad. You know that you’re truly tight with the Lord when you trust Him either way. Child of God, you can always trust God with every detail of your life.
It’s more important that you trust God with your problem than He solves it. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 NKJV).
By God’s design, my sensory system is about as messed up as it could be, and because of that, I have never fit in very well with other people. We are all imperfect. If only we would accept ourselves in our imperfections, because God surely does.
God made each one of us perfectly unique and perfectly gifted to live out His perfect plan for each of us. This perfect plan is scarred with imperfections. It is in our brokenness that His power flows. The river flows through the weakest part of the land, and so the power of God flows through the weakest part of us. Jesus told the apostle Paul, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 CJB).
Growing up, I never had a best friend. I never had close friends. Over the years, I would spend time with different groups of people, but never really stuck with anyone. As time went by, I found it easier to be alone than to be around others.
If God made you a loner, perhaps it was so you could spend more time with Him. Jesus said, “You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me” (John 16:32 NIV).
When I came to know Jesus Christ, I found that He wants us to be His friends. That was such a grand revelation to me, that the Savior of the world, the Son of God, Christ Himself, would be my Friend! If you don’t know Him as your Friend, then you don’t really know Him very well at all.
I have heard, “If you want to have a friend, then be a friend”. So true! The same is true with Jesus. If you want Him to be a friend to you, then be a friend to Him. How to do this? Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14 NKJV). Ask Him and He will help you. Jesus Christ will give you the Holy Spirit to help you obey Him just as His Father promised from long ago. “I will put my Spirit in you. I will enable you to live by my laws, and you will obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:27 GW).
Later in my faith journey, I met the Holy Spirit, and He changed me. He became my best Friend forever. He desires to be inside of me and to help me forever, and so when you are that close, you cannot help but for Him to be your best Friend.
You can’t be filled with the Spirit of God and continue as you were before. “For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set controlled by the [Holy] Spirit finds life and peace” (Romans 8:6 TPT).
The Holy Spirit being your best Friend is not dependent on you, but you will always be dependent on Him. Once you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you might grieve Him sometimes, but He will stay with you and help you to become who God wants you to be.
Don’t be the limit of you, let the Holy Spirit help you. Jesus promised, “Then I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you” (John 14:16 CEV).
You will be a better friend to others when the Holy Spirit is your best Friend because the fruit of that friendship will pour out onto others. The closer you are to the Holy Spirit, the greater He will change you into something sweet and gracious toward others.
You can’t get any closer to God than to have the Spirit of God within you. “… the help of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside us” (2 Timothy 1:14 ERV).
You can never earn being friends with the Holy Spirit, but only ask Him and He will accept you just as you are. You cannot travel two inches in your spiritual journey on the back of intellectual arguments, but only be carried away by the power of the Spirit of God.
You cannot be spiritual without the Holy Spirit. “If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts [gifts that are to their advantage] to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!” (Luke 11:13 AMPC).
When a person is a good friend to you, the conversation will prove it. You will speak more freely and without fear of being misunderstood. The same is true with your friendship with the Holy Spirit; your conversations will most certainly prove it.
Moses spoke to God as a friend because He was. “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend…” (Exodus 33:11 NKJV).
When you have a best friend, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any other friends. And when the Holy Spirit is your best friend, you will be a better friend to others than you could have ever been before. Your best life is the surrendered life, filled with the Holy Spirit.
When you pray for your enemies, God just might make them your friend. “We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life!” (Romans 5:10 GNT).
The Holy Spirit knows everything about me. He knows my suffering, and He knows my failures. He knows the best things about me and the worst things, too. The reason He is my best friend is that He stays with me through it all, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Friendships are blessed by peace, but proven in turmoil. True friends are not the ones with you in the good times, but the ones who remain in the bad. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17 NKJV). If you desire a friend, then simply be one.
You can have the Holy Spirit as your best Friend too. He is longing to be closer to you, to help you, to guide you, to comfort you, and to be with you in the good times and in the bad. All you have to do is ask Him.
You think you know so much, and that is why you learn so little. To learn like a child, be the child. Jesus said, “…ask, and it will be given to you…everyone who asks receives…” (Luke 11:9,10 NKJV).
The key to always receiving what you ask for is to always ask for what you are supposed to receive. Jesus said, “…your heavenly Father [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13 NKJV).
Child of God, it doesn’t matter how far you are from God right now, because just one turn will put you right before Him. And when you are in His presence, He will fill you with His Spirit, and His presence will forever be with you.
Sitting in front of a blank piece of paper, what is the story you would write about yourself? Make that your prayer for the year ahead. “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13 NKJV).
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius
I am so encouraged and blessed by this wonderful reminder…, for this fully describes my hearts desire…so thankful for the Holy Spirit to lead you to share this !!
Thank you for your kind words on this blog! I pray the Holy Spirit would lead you, and bless you with his guidance, his comfort, and his wisdom. God bless you always! Paul
Friendships— the very word stirs up many memories and video-like memory flashes. In similar fashion as the writer of this post, I was also a loner by nature, even as a child and into adulthood. As a child I was shy and slow to trust people, but with my cat, and later my dog, there was an instant bond. Those who I thought were my friends, in my late twenties when I responded to the drawing of the Holy Spirit, proved to be alleged friends who avoided me because I had become too ‘righteous’, or as they referred to me, ‘religious’ in their minds. No longer drinking to excess, enjoying dirty jokes etc. But, but through Jesus, the longing of my heart for a devoted and trustworthy friend was satisfied. By this time I had been betrayed, used, slandered, and dishonored. These are called fair weather friends. When the storms of life hit and hit hard, they were not in sight. God is a foul weather friend and at times, if given permission through our surrender and humility, the storms will come as a type of refiner’s fire. He the Holy Spirit is very real, and truly near if we have the right attitude of heart. God in his goodness can feel nearer to you in a tornado than he feels close to you on an ocean cruise. Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV) “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Peter would not have sunk if he kept his eyes on Jesus. Matthew 14:29-31. If me must daydream, then may we daydream on Him.
I love how you describe the bond you have with your animals as being instant. The more alone we are, the more seperate we are from others, the greater our bond will be with animals. They fill a void, meet our deepest needs, and love us unconditionally. This is the same experience I had with the Holy Spirit, He filled a void, He met my deepest needs, and He loves me unconditionally. Blessings to you!
I love love this. So appreciate all your wisdom , your love for God and for his people.
Thank you so much! We are so blessed when we are filled with the Spirit of God, for God love, and Him in us will produce love through us. Blessings to you!
Yes, blessed, wondrous, eternal Spirit of holiness and truth, immutable, mercifully, splendorously sent from heaven, the resurrection and the life, inimitably saving and sanctifying my spirit in vital, conscious union and intimate, abiding, worshipfully obedient love communion, as one Spirit/spirit with Yourself, Being the One Three-Person God, the Abba Almighty and His faultlessly faithful, ardent Amen of the Holy Trinity of cherishing, living Infinity.
Closer than the light emanates from the flame, than the waves intrinsically wash with the sea, than I am even contiguously to or essentially me, You are, therefore, I am. Your virtuous volition, Your idea, Your ideation, Your conception and celebration, Your creation of ingenious individuality and redemptive reality, as to spirit, soul, and soma, from before the foundation of the world, I am.
As my ceaselessly compassionate, constant Companion in Whom I live and move and have my being, never to forget me, neither fail me, nor forsake me, You surely sealed me for the celestial city, courtyards, and countryside, the holy, happy highlands of heaven hereafter. Your perfect workmanship, to that Perfect Day, I am in progress, exceedingly glad and everlastingly grateful to work out my salvation, stricken with reverent awe and trembling, because You work in me proficiently, preempting sinful self, so as both to will and to do of Your graciously good and perfect pleasure.
Beloved brethren, almost overly obvious to me is that what is true for me is absolutely, altogether true for you. Precious Holy Spirit, we love that You pour forth the love of the One Beautiful Triune God of all grace and all glory for us, in us, and through us to You and to our fellow man, and that we can worship wholeheartedly, whenever we so will, in the boundless beauty of Your Being.
You write such wonderful words that can only be poured out from a soul who has been wonderfully poured into by the Holy Spirit of God.
Paul writes, “If God made you a loner, perhaps it was so you could spend more time with Him. Jesus said, “You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me” (John 16:32 NIV).
I am and have been a loner my entire lifetime. Seldom have I felt a sense of loneliness. I honestly don’t thing that I believed I was superior or inferior. Best friends I’ve had and a best friend I have today but in my 73 years I haven’t felt much need at all for the company of other people. Admittedly, I would that I had been more attentive to of my wife’s company and thus more affectionate toward her. A girlfriend of hers told me one day at church that she was jealous of my relationship with Jesus.
Even at family gatherings, my favorite place to be is off by myself. It’s not that I don’t like people, but with my sensory system, it is too hard to be around them. God makes us how we are and He does not make mistakes.