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November 24, 2024 |
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Member of the Circle January 17, 2007 • By William Davis InSpirit Ministry
While writing this at my kitchen table this morning, sipping my Turkish coffee (I took the day off from work), I’m reflecting on one of my favorite passages in the book, ‘The Four Loves’ by C. S. Lewis. “In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day’s walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet are spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but are all freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life – natural life – has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?”
From among the many occasions God allows us to spend our time and ourselves, do we chose wisely to sample the richness of our sagacious friendships and take in all of his penetrating wisdom and love through their camaraderie? Oh that we would see the sense of the sages in our lives and their deposit of refined gold within our grasp. My favorite way to brew coffee is with a French Press. After roasting the beans, grinding them just so and steeping them to perfection, I then savor each precious drop. My reason for the press? It’s at the bottom of my cup. Because of the presses’ design, there is very fine silt that I enjoy in the last few sips of each cup. The essence of the refining of the original creation. It’s that final rich taste and feel that makes and finishes this ultimate experience. As with Appreciate love, it’s the process that brings out the best that supplies me with the lasting pleasure. My best friend wrote this to me just two days ago .“Anyway, it also goes along with something Pastor said on Sunday that is oh so true. He was talking about how you can have so many people around you and they really think they know you, yet they don’t know you at all (remember that?). Anyway, I began to smile because the people that really know me are those that really know God. And guess what......in knowing you for one year, you know me better than people that have known me for all of my 30 years! Isn’t it just like the Father to make that possible!!” She’s my best friend on earth because she serves as an example of all that I revere in my best friend in Heaven. I have found, like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow (that has appeared as a sign of God that we have made it through a storm), a real treasure in those whom God has placed into my life. On Easter Sunday, friends at my new church invited me over for a splendid meal and warm fellowship, a cornucopia of hollowness. And at lunchtime today I luxuriated in the company of two new friends, one whom is a manager of a Starbucks here in uptown
Let it be said of all his true believers, that “one cannot find any meetings among them where they drink it (His Spirit) not…” William M. Davis In His strength and honor, William M. Davis Related Articles · More Articles |