(Read Mark 2:1-12 before reading this devotional.)

Something about just hearing the word “friendship” makes me feel good. I immediately start thinking about long phone conversations, inside jokes, road trips, a good meal together, a good cup of coffee and a lot of laughs. When I think about friendship, a lot of great things come to mind. But the truth is a friendship made up of only the great stuff isn’t really a friendship at all. It’s a fantasy. Because anyone who has been friends with someone for a long time can tell you that as much fun as solid quality friendship can be, it can be a lot of hard work too. It isn’t always convenient and it definitely isn’t always easy.

At one point in His ministry, Jesus encountered some guys in Capernaum who had learned firsthand the sometimes inopportune and awkward demands of being a friend. When Jesus had entered the city, He went to a house to begin preaching His message. Word had spread about Him and what He was able to do—His reputation proceeded His arrival so that once He got in town, not only were people ready to hear Him, they crowded the house He was in, gathered outside the doors and windows, and were willing to do just about anything to get a closer look at this rumored Messiah. There was talk that He was a healer, a miracle worker and that in a seemingly effortless way, He could restore sight to the blind, movement to the lame and hope to the desperate.

With that much hype surrounding Jesus’ arrival, it was no surprise that the crowds took to Him immediately, surrounding every square inch of space available around Him. And the guys this story is about were no different than the rest of the town—they were five guys whose curiosity was piqued and whose interest was stirred. They too wanted to hear what Jesus had to say. Only one problem. One of the five was a paralytic. As in totally paralyzed. As in living his life on the space of a 3×6 foot mat. Every day. Day in. Day out.

Let’s get honest here. Let’s say what everyone else is thinking. When it came to getting to hear Jesus, this paralyzed guy was kind of slowing the rest of them down. I mean it took all four of his friends to carry him, and if they wanted any chance of getting to the action, then they had to leave this friend behind. Surely he would understand. Surely he would see that he was more a hindrance than a help. Surely he wouldn’t mind if they promised to bring him around next time Jesus made a public appearance.

But these four guys weren’t about to leave their friend—the one who needed the touch of Jesus more than anyone else—behind. They weren’t about to put their interests, their desires, their expectations before the wants of their paralyzed friend. So, the book of Mark says, the four friends carried the fifth guy. They each took a corner of his mat, and they lifted him, shouldered him, somehow moved him to the house where Jesus was, only to find the crowds more than they could handle. They couldn’t get close enough. They could hardly hear a thing from the outside. Their plan was interrupted. So they gave up? Nope. So, they cut their losses and said maybe next time? So they left their friend on the mat and bumped and pushed their way closer to hear what Jesus had to say themselves? No. They got creative. They climbed on the roof. And then they made an opening there. As in, they damaged private property. And then somehow they got their paralyzed friend on the roof, and with whatever strength they had left, they lowered him, slowly, carefully, but probably not quietly, into the room where Jesus was teaching.

And while the people there may have been a little put out, a little frustrated by the disturbance, Jesus wasn’t at all. In fact, Jesus takes note. Not just of the man on the mat coming from the roof, but of the four men who worked to get him there. The book of Mark says that when Jesus saw their faith—not the paralyzed man’s faith, but their faith, the faith of all five men and not just the one—He did more than what everyone expected. He invited the paralyzed man to pick up his mat and walk.

Jesus stopped what He was doing when He saw the faith of five friends. It silenced Him. He noticed it. He made an example out of five guys who saw the bigger picture of friendship than just convenience, ease and a benefit to themselves. What these guys understood was that friendship very rarely has to do with only the good stuff and the easy stuff. That oftentimes the friendships that go the distance, the friendships that people take note of, the friendships that end up silencing the people around you are the ones that are marked by selflessness, the ability to drop personal needs for the sake of someone else’s. The friendships that get our attention are the ones where someone is willing to get a little uncomfortable for the sake of the one who needs him or her.

How far are you willing to go when it comes to being inconvenienced for the sake of a friend? Are you willing to carry the mat? Are you willing to put yourself aside and risk some embarrassment, just so you can get that friend to the feet of Jesus? What lengths are you willing to go to?

Who around you could use some help carrying their mat? Who could use some extra strength, some additional care, some added encouragement? Who needs you to be the kind of friend you have the potential to be? And what will it take for you to start acting like this friend they need? Yes, it can be hard. Sure, it may be uncomfortable. But you have more than just the world’s attention when you live this way. You have the eye of Jesus on you. You have the attention of the very One whose love you are modeling. He notices love, service and friendship of this magnitude. And where He is involved, anything can happen.

©2009 The reThink Group, Inc.

If you’re anything like me, I usually walk into a room of strangers and start looking for the people who look like me. Okay, not exactly like me—I’m not that vain. But I tend to find people who seem to dress similar to me, who are around my same age, who seem to be a “similar status” as me. But the ironic thing is that most of the time, once I start a conversation with those people; I’m bored out of my mind. Or the conversation just is strained, awkward, and we’re done talking after about a minute.

It’s “comfortable” to seek out people who are like me, but if I’m honest with myself, most of the people who are closest to me are nothing like me. And that’s a good thing. King Solomon was the wisest man—ever. He wrote things like: “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20 NIV). And from his son Rehoboam’s decisions, one just might think he wasn’t listening to his dad’s advice.

Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”
The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’—tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.”
The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”
So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!” So the Israelites went home (1 Kings 12:6-16 NIV).

Rehoboam chose to ignore the people who were different than him, in order to follow the advice of those who were just like him. And the advice of his friends, the ones he grew up, turned out to be very bad.

There are people in your life now, people who are so different from you, that you may be completely oblivious to because you have this picture of what your friends should look like, how they should dress, what kind of financial status they should have. And there may be someone in your life or someone you know who doesn’t fit any of those criteria, but could be someone who brings a different perspective, teaches you new things and even inspires you to be more like Christ.

When we don’t allow people into our lives who look and act differently than we do, we end up less. Too much time in the company of people exactly like you starts to affect you—just ask Rehoboam. It starts to make you think that if someone isn’t like you, than they aren’t good enough. We start to judge people and their worth based on how closely they resemble us, and we think that God is on board with it. But don’t be fooled—He’s not. God isn’t only like me. He isn’t only like you. And, God didn’t make a world full of clones. But when we begin to act like we, and people like us, are the only people worth investing in, we start to shrink God. We start to undermine His creativity and the pleasure He finds in the diversity among us. God is much bigger than that. And He wants us to be bigger than our sometimes narrow view of other people.

There is one thing in common you definitely want in a good friend—you want to have people close to you who have an active relationship with Jesus Christ. People who love Him, not only with their words, but with their lives. But their interests, their perspectives can be completely different than yours.

The world is much bigger than us. It is much bigger than people like us. Do you believe that there is more to you and more to me than just who we already are right now? What if there was this incredible untapped potential to become so much bigger than we even thought possible if we just began to entertain this idea that there are people out there who are going to shake our lives up, maybe push our buttons every once in awhile, but who will expand our world in ways we could never do on our own?

What if someone different from you wasn’t bad, but was just what you needed to become the person God has in mind? Would you choose them, pick them, accept them as friends as different as they be from you—even if no one around you, including yourself, understood “why them”?

As one of the Small Group Leaders at InsideOut, I decided to go along with our teens and experience this adventure with them.  I have to admit, I wasn’t thrilled about the early mornings during the holiday, but I figured that if our InsideOut teens could do it, then I could do it, too!

Metro Kids Holiday Club ran during the World Cup in 1-week intervals in different areas of Cape Town.  The camp facilitates games, prizes, Bible stories, dramas, and lunch for primary school-aged kids.  Our team was based out of a community centre in Guguletu for the week.

I have been a part of many camps and clubs for kids in both America and Guatemala, but in all my experience, this was the first time I’d ever experienced a language barrier with the kids.  While many of them spoke English, most of them were much more comfortable speaking Xhosa.  Some of the smaller children had a very limited proficiency in the English language.  Because of this, the Metro Kids team performed most of the Bible stories and dramas in Xhosa.

I never ceased to be amazed by our teenage volunteers from InsideOut.  Although I perpetually struggled with the language barrier, our teenagers never seemed to blink an eye in the face of it.  It’s amazing how the language of love overcomes the limitations of words.  Each teen who volunteered reached out to the children present at the club, breaking out of the familiar for the sake of sharing the love of Christ.  

After talking to many of the teens one on one, the overwhelming consensus was that participating in Metro Kids Holiday Camps was a great way spend their time over the holidays.  Not only did they courageously venture into the unfamiliar, they built memories and relationships with their friends that will last well into the future.  

At InsideOut, we attempt to do at least one big activity per year that gets teens involved with sharing God’s love in the community.  This initiative, known as “Love Moves”, promotes social awareness within Cape Town and encourages teens to be generous with their time and resources, as Jesus commanded.  We also encourage teens to take part in the Love Moves initiative on more regular basis by volunteering in one of our environments on Sunday mornings. 

If you’d like to take part in Love Moves on a weekly basis, visit Love Moves and sign up to volunteer.  

We always welcome suggestions for our bigger Love Moves projects.  If you have any ideas for the 2011 year, please feel free to comment on this blog post or send suggestions to insideout@southpointchurch.co.za.