More Like Silas

The fog of 2020 is so thick for most of us it’s hard to pay attention to anything that doesn’t feel urgent.

Your job? Urgent. Your kid screaming in the next room? Urgent. Your mental health? Urgent. The conversation with your spouse about finances? Urgent. Seeing the friend that you saw every week or twice a month for the last four or five years? Not urgent. Maybe not even possible. Calling someone who crosses your mind because you wonder how they are doing? Maybe in 2021 when you come above water.  Everyone I know, Christian or not, agrees that friendship and connection matter, but it’s fascinating how quickly all of that has fallen by the wayside this year.

This past week, we talked about the fruit of the Spirit of faithfulness. Paul talks about that word a lot, and he applies it to many different aspects of our lives in which we should be faithful.  Perhaps where we need to be reminded the most this year is that he attaches it to friendship. He says about Silas,  

With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.

- 1 Peter 5:12

What kind of friend was Silas to Paul? Faithful. The Spirit of God in our lives has a way of reordering us, shifting us, even in the most difficult of times, towards what is eternal and what matters most. What kind of friend was Silas? The kind of friend who went to prison with Paul, Acts tells us. The kind of friend who even in the chaos of financial loss and shipwreck was faithful. Don’t abandon your friends.

It could be that the pandemic or even politics has frayed the fabric between you and someone you care deeply about; but may the Spirit reorder you and I to what is eternal instead of the temporal; and create faithfulness in us.

Pastor Jared

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