Over Labor Day weekend I was able to spend some time with my friend Ruth Ann as we celebrated 50 years of friendship together by taking a trip to Nashville, IN to enjoy the beauty of the small town, do a little shopping in the quaint and unusual shops along their main street and just be together to strengthen, renew, and celebrate friendship. Ruth Ann and I met on the first day of kindergarten traveling on the bus to Ready Elementary School in Griffith, IN and have been great friends ever since. We managed to spend lots of time together during our elementary and high school years, but not as much time as we entered college and went our separate ways; her to Purdue University and me to the University of Michigan. Yet even when the miles between us have been great, we have always managed to connect through phone conversations, email, visits to one another and now even on Facebook. It’s hasn’t necessarily always been easy; both of us have been busy with raising our families, holding down full time jobs, maintaining our homes; all of those things that can leave little time for friendships when the children are young. However, somehow we always managed to be there for the important things for one another; weddings, anniversaries, funerals of parents and other family members, bridal showers, baby showers, christenings, baptisms, ect. I suppose we made those events a priority to attend. I can’t help but think that our willingness to be there for one another throughout the years has contributed to a loving, grace filled, fun, and altogether solid friendship that we both value and count on.

            Ruth Ann and I have enjoyed a wonderful relationship with one another because we have been willing to invest the time and energy it takes to maintain a healthy relationship. I doubt that I’m telling any of you anything new when I say that any good, solid relationships take time, energy, and even at times, sacrifice. The same kind of principles apply when it comes to connecting to and having a relationship with Jesus Christ. It takes time, energy, and sacrifice to have a good, solid, healthy relationship with our Savior. Jesus is always available to us and always ready to hear our prayers, accept our worship, empower our knowledge, give us the energy and heart to reach out to others with God’s love, hold us accountable, offer us grace, love, and forgiveness. If we feel far from God; it’s probably not God who moved.

            What do you need to do to move closer to Jesus? Pray? Come to worship? Go to Sunday School? Read your Bible? Engage in an act of kindness and or love for your neighbor? Ask for forgiveness, accept God’s love, live a life of grace and mercy?

            Relationships are important. Our relationship with Christ is the most important relationship in our lives. Christ is waiting for you. Will you accept his offer of deep, meaningful, solid, life giving relationship?