Thought for the Day - Thursday 1 October

Thought for the Day – Thursday 1st October ‘But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”’ (Ruth 1: 16-17) Someone called me yesterday needing help and said they were in need of friend – someone who would understand their situation and offer some advice. That got me thinking about friendship and this passage from Ruth immediately sprung to my mind where the friendship between Ruth and Naomi has grown so much and become so strong that Ruth can see no future for herself without her friend Naomi being in that future and where the bond of friendship between Ruth and Naomi’s God has grown, developed and deepened to the point where Ruth puts all her trust in Naomi’s God and pledges loyalty to him. What kind of friend are you? Are you the dependable sort of friend who people turn to in any time of crisis or are you what some call a ‘fair-weather friend’, someone who is swift to vanish when any sort of commitment is mentioned or where there may be some ‘cost’ to you in being a friend to some? We would all like to believe that we are that true, loyal, dependable friend but we perhaps need to ask ourselves if we would honestly be willing to make sacrifices for our friends – all of our friends if they asked us to do so. Friendship should be one of those special qualities we possess as a Christian for did not Jesus himself modelled friendship and indeed widen the whole concept of friendship when he included those whom others would not befriend and indeed befriended not just those he was close to but also those who were effectively strangers to him. Can we ever show such a level of friendship? Jesus’ model of friendship can be hard to follow and I suppose few of us would ever really get anywhere near to the depth of friendship Jesus showed but each and every one of us can aspire to show such friendship and be such a friend. Our passage reminds us of the devotion of Ruth, who centuries before Jesus’ birth showed herself to be Christ-like in her friendships – choosing to make sacrifices for her friend – leaving her own country, sacrificing all that was familiar, even setting aside her own religion and choosing instead to be a good, true and loyal friend to Naomi and choosing to build a friendship with God. Maybe we are being encouraged by this passage today to think of our own friendships, are they self-serving ones or are they truly serving others. Maybe we are being encouraged to take time to speak with our friends, to see how they are doing, to let them know we are thinking of them and car about them – and not just today or occasionally but always – showing that same devotion as Ruth. Prayer Loving God, As your friends we come to you in prayer seeking to renew our sense of call. We come to deepen our friendship with you, to deepen our friendships with each other, and to grow our friendship with our world. May we never be merely ‘fair-weather friends’ to our friends or to you but rather aspire always to be the type of friend modelled by Jesus showing friendship to those whom others will not befriend, be they near to us or far from us. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.