Ricky was the most popular guy in our fourth grade culture—smart, admired by all the girls, good in sports, and hip in that grade school kind of way. Everyone wanted to be Ricky’s best friend.

And I was…for about three days.

I remember how great it felt living in that wonderland of being the renowned Ricky’s best friend. We did everything together and he consulted me on every decision or opinion.

“What do you think, Eddie?”

“Ask Eddie. He’s really smart.”

It seemed that the other boys and girls admired me almost as much as him. When Ricky and I walked onto the playground we were important. I was living a dream until the day I rode my bike into the schoolyard and noticed “him.”

Randy

Where did he come from? Suddenly Ricky’s world was all about Randy and I faded back into the crowd—a regular nobody.

And then Ricky turned to me and called me “Underwood” instead of “Eddie.” That did it. I screamed in Ricky’s face, “I don’t need you!” I shouted it again and again as I ran from Ricky’s fan club to hide my tears.

It wasn’t the last time I said that to somebody: “I don’t need you!”

With almost six decades of life behind me now, I’m beginning to understand what I was really saying to Ricky and to everyone else on the receiving end of my desperate claim to independence, “I don’t need you!”

“I don’t need you” always expresses a wounded heart. It really means, “I cannot trust you, and therefore I determine not to need you. Your love is self-centered, conditional, disappointing, and hurtful. I long to need you, but I will not! Better not to need at all than to need and be hurt.”

Could it be that you’re thinking of someone you have determined not to need? A father who used or spurned your innocent love? A mother who let you know you would never measure up? A pastor whose love always had more to do with what you could do for him than what God could do for you? A spouse or friend who betrayed you? A prodigal child? A family member who just won’t let you in?

Friend, your heart will never heal in the shadow of a lie. It isn’t that you don’t need these people, it’s that they have hurt you so badly that it takes your breath away.

A Healthier Option

May I offer a healthier option to screaming, “I don’t need you” and running across the playground of your life?

Run to Jesus. Run to His the throne of grace and scream in your heart or at the top of your lungs, “Jesus, I need you!”

And stay there as long as it takes to trust and feel His healing love melt away the bitterness and relieve the hurt.

His is a love that will never disappoint because it’s a love without an agenda, without conditions and all about you.   It’s a love you can trust that won’t ever say to you, “Wait, I’m busy with the more important people. Can’t you see I’m talking to Randy?” His arms are always open to you because you are His special concern. He is the only One who knows what you need most…Him.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 13:9).

Looking for a friend?

If you’re looking for that friendship that is totally fulfilling, you need to know that you won’t find it this side of heaven.

On the other side of that barrier is the only One who will not disappoint you, the only One who is always thinking about you and never of Himself, the only One who doesn’t need you.

His name is Jesus.

Friendship:

Since no one thinks about you much,

Unless they need you.

Relate deeply to Jesus;

Expect Him alone to meet your deepest needs.

Question: How do you sometimes put pressure on your friends to “be Jesus” for you?

We Can’t Know What We Don’t Know!

Many years ago Judy and I were facing our most traumatic and hurtful trial of faith. Our world as we knew it was falling apart, and there was nothing we could do to put the pieces of our lives back together again.

Kevin Butcher and his wife Carla helped us through with words of encouragement, counsel, and their usual warm friendship. As two of our closest friends who understand the challenges and heartaches of local church ministry, their support comforted us greatly.

Four years later, Kevin and Carla faced the exact same crisis, the exact same heartache in their own church. I’ll never forget Kevin’s words to me in the middle of his own battle, “Ed, I never knew. I just didn’t understand. I wish I could have helped you more, but now that I’m going through it myself, I get it. There’s so much more I should have said, so much more I could have done.”

I assured my friend that he had not failed us in any way and reminded him of a truth we often have to rehearse: “I can’t know what I don’t know.” There was no way Kevin could have drawn wisdom from an experience he had never known personally.

Jesus Knows!

When I hung up the phone, I thought of Hebrews 4:14-16 and immediately thanked the Lord Jesus for this precious promise. Because of His willingness to come to earth and to experience life as a man, He now sits in heaven with personal knowledge of what it feels like to be me. Every heartache, every trial and even every temptation.

Kevin’s friendship means so much to me. But there are times when even he has to say, “I just didn’t understand all that you were going through. I couldn’t know how you felt, how terrible it was, how much it hurt or how alone you must have been.”

But there is another Friend. A friend of sinners, who sits at the right hand of the Father. His name is Jesus, and I will never hear Him say, “I just didn’t understand.”

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Ricky

Ricky was the most popular guy in our fourth grade culture—smart, admired by all the girls, good in sports, and hip in that grade school kind of way. Everyone wanted to be Ricky’s best friend.

And I was…for about three days.

I remember how great it felt living in that wonderland of being the renowned Ricky’s best friend. We did everything together and he consulted me on every decision or opinion.

• “What do you think, Eddie?”
• “Ask Eddie. He’s really smart.”

It seemed that the other boys and girls admired me almost as much as him. When Ricky and I walked onto the playground we were important. I was living a dream until the day I rode my bike into the schoolyard and noticed “him.”

Randy.

Where did he come from? Suddenly Ricky’s world was all about Randy and I faded back into the crowd—a regular nobody.

And then Ricky turned to me and called me “Underwood” instead of “Eddie.” That did it. I screamed in Ricky’s face, “I don’t need you!” I shouted it again and again as I ran from Ricky’s fan club to hide my tears.

My Wounded Heart

It wasn’t the last time I said that to somebody: “I don’t need you!”

With six decades of life behind me now, I’m beginning to understand what I was really saying to Ricky and to everyone else on the receiving end of my desperate claim to independence, “I don’t need you!”

“I don’t need you” always expresses a wounded heart. It really means, “I cannot trust you, and therefore I determine not to need you. Your love is self-centered, conditional, disappointing, and hurtful. I long to need you, but I will not! Better not to need at all than to need and be hurt.”

Could it be that you’re thinking of someone you have determined not to need? A father who used or spurned your innocent love? A mother who let you know you would never measure up? A pastor whose love always had more to do with what you could do for him than what God could do for you? A spouse or friend who betrayed you? A prodigal child? A family member who just won’t let you in?

Your heart will never heal in the shadow of a lie. It isn’t that you don’t need these people, it’s that they have hurt you so badly that it takes your breath away.

A Healthier Option

May I offer a healthier option to screaming, “I don’t need you” and running across the playground of your life?

Run to Jesus. Run to His throne of grace and scream in your heart or at the top of your lungs, “Jesus, I need you!”

And stay there as long as it takes to trust and feel His healing love melt away the bitterness and relieve the hurt.

His is a love that will never disappoint because it’s a love without an agenda, without conditions and all about you.   It’s a love you can trust that won’t ever say to you, “Wait, I’m busy with the more important people. Can’t you see I’m talking to Randy?” His arms are always open to you because you are His special concern. He is the only One who knows what you need most…Him.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 13:9).

Question: How can I help you trust the love of Jesus more? Write me.

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

Really?

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A Friendship Day

Two or three times a year I fight the 57 freeway traffic down to Orange County to meet one of my lifelong friends. Dave Burchett and I met in 1980, my first year at Dallas Seminary. I think our wives were in a Bible study together in the little neighborhood church we attended. Since Dave and Joni lived outside of the “spiritual cocoon” of the seminary culture, their friendship made a big difference during our four years in Dallas, Texas.

In the years since, Judy and I have moved all over the country—Michigan, Oregon, Southern California. Dave and Joni are still in Dallas, only a few miles from their original home. The four of us have only met together a few times in the two decades since. Dave’s a television director, so his travels give us more opportunity to see one another.

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There’s nothing like it:

A web of redemptive relationship sharing Jesus’ love in protective and nurturing ways.

I just wrapped up five of the most authentic community days I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been speaking at the annual Thanksgiving at Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center in Cannon Beach, Oregon. But it was so much more than a conference for my Judy and me: it was intimate community.

About thirty of our faith community in SoCal–Church of the Open Door–traveled two days braving the rain and snow just to experience it with us. A few families from our past–choice families God has privileged us to disciple now living all over the United States also joined us. Some of our dearest friends in the extended family of God lead the ministries of Cannon Beach–Ecola Bible School and CBCC. Finally, my daughter Celia with her husband David and little Zachary, and my daughter Aimee with her three children, Jackson, Megan, and Camryn were with us.

We ate Thanksgiving together, centered our thoughts on Jesus and His Word, worshiped Him, laughed, cried, prayed, played games, talked about our lives, watched our children draw closer together, and simply experienced the joy of sharing our lives with Jesus and one another.

It’s Sunday evening and everyone–including my Judy–has returned to their “real life.” I’m prepping to teach at Ecola Bible School next week and work on my next book. But before I move on, I have to tell you three reasons why this type of community enriches your Christian life:

It’s a taste of heaven. Judy and I have been coming to Cannon Beach for twenty years now. As we anticipated some of our friends arriving, we kept saying, “I can’t wait until they get here and we can show them this place and introduce them to our Cannon Beach friends.” Judy remarked, “We’ll probably have these same thoughts when we’re in heaven and the Lord Jesus tells us someone we love is about to show up in that wonderful place.” Heaven is going to be all about relationship with the Lord Jesus and one another. Community brings some of that experience to earth.

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Not Tonight!

It was the last thing I wanted to do—be around a group of people.

I was bone-tired and emotionally spent. A desperate phone call the night before had left Judy and me sleepless. Two of our very best friends had been killed in a car accident in Oregon. Not only did this news break my heart, it also drained me as it pressurized my insane schedule. Somehow I had to find time to fly to Portland, do a wrenching memorial service, fly home, and get back to everything else I had to do. (On that list was taking my teenage daughter to the DMV for her driving exam.)

“I’m not going to small group tonight,” I reported to Judy. “This is nuts!”

“You don’t have a choice. We’re baptizing Brian and Lori (two new believers) in the pool. Everyone’s expecting us,” my bride protested.

“You go if you want,” I replied. “I’m not going; I have too much to do.” (Though I didn’t say it, I was also thinking that the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was be around a group of people . . . even if it was our church small group.)

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Sitting at my feet is a 25-pound companion who never thinks of herself. She was made by God to assist men and women in the acquisition of food, specifically cuisine that takes wing. Her ancestors flushed the partridges and pheasants of a field so that the hawks and falcons of the landed gentry could strike them from the air. When they fell to the ground dazed and confused, these little wonders with God-given ability to smell beyond the wildest imaginations of mere humans would dutifully scoop up the prey into soft mouths. Never thinking of these delicacies for personal consumption, they happily bounced back to the gamekeeper to deposit the prized fowl seeking only a pat on the head and the “good girl” or “good boy” they live for.

My current edition of the descendants of these companions of nobles and kings is a black and white English lady named Annie. Packed into her little frame is a big-dog heart ready to scour field or pond for the wonder of a bird or duck with an enthusiasm and reckless abandon that never quits, never doubts, and risks life and limb to find, flush, and fetch the feathered prize for the true object of her unbounded devotion and love…me.

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I’m fascinated by God’s timing; always have been. A friend of mine use to say that it’s His signature on events. He sure signed off on the last two days of my life to teach me an important lesson.

Last Sunday our study of Mark brought us to chapter 9:30-37, a fascinating conversation between Jesus and His disciples concerning greatness. As they passed through Galilee, Jesus taught them again concerning His impending death and resurrection. This time He added the discouraging news that all of this will happen because someone will betray Him. They didn’t understand; it was just too much for them, and they were afraid to ask Him to explain further.

What they did understand were the prophecies that someday Messiah would rule and reign over His Kingdom on earth. Still clinging to their insistence that Jesus should be that Messiah—the ruling and reigning one, rather than the Messiah He was telling them He was—the One who would first suffer, die, and then rise from the dead, they did what everyone does when they are around someone they think has power and status: They postured for position in His Kingdom. They were about to learn Jesus’ definition of greatness—His radical, counterculture, counter-flesh, measure of greatness in His Kingdom: If you follow Jesus, He will ask you to serve everyone—especially the weak.

It’s an upside-down measure of greatness for most people. It’s not the number of people who serve you that matters to Jesus; it’s the number of people you serve.

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