I know it has been a long time coming for this post.  I want to spend some time looking at the importance of the relationships in our life.  The first thing that I think we must consider is the idea of balance in our lives.  What I am referring to with balance is in having relationships with those who do and do not have relationships with Jesus.  We need both in our life and I believe that Jesus desires this.  The general rule that I give my students to gauge this is using the law of influence.  Who is influencing who and how much?  Now the reality is that people influence each other by spending time with one another. but are you being influenced in a negative way or are you influencing them in a positive way.  This is for all relationships, we want relationships to make a stronger not weaker.

I believe that we as followers of Jesus must have relationships with those who do not have that relationship yet.  If we look at the life of Jesus we see that he was very strategic with his opportunities and relationships he had.  He would build a bridge or start a conversation with someone and ultimately share truth with them.  What an amazing model for us.  I had an interesting opportunity today to share truth with someone.  My wife and I had some friends over today and it was getting past dinner and we realized that the kids were hungry.  We realized this because the were into the fruit and veggies.  We ordered a couple of pizzas and shortly left to pick them.  When my friend and I arrived to pick up the pizzas we had to wait awhile for them to be finished.  In the town I live in, drinking is the village sport.  We buy our pizzas from the local bar. 

We got there and were waiting and as usual in my life a conversation started with the guy sitting near us.  This guy had been there awhile, and we had a conversation that ranged from hockey to ice fishing to picking up drift wood at the lake to shooting sea gulls to hunting deer.  When you live in northern Wisconsin these are all normal topics.  This conversations was full of many many many "colorful metaphors".  The truth is we talked for less than 5 minutes and I think he swore 60 to 70 times.  I know, it was exciting.  Yes exciting, thats right.  You see I got to talk with a guy who probably needs to know Jesus.  The cool thing is he said that he thinks if we want to shoot a deer to feed our families we should be able to do this whenever we need to.  He even said that God put them here for us.  I said I agreed with him, God did put them here for us.  The conversation ended there because we got our pizzas and with 6 hungry kids at the house we did not want to be gone very long. 

Now most of us have people like my new friend in our lives.  People going from one day to the next in need of direction.  The cool thing in this whole episode was I was with a good friend that also saw that this guy most likely needed Jesus.  We jumped in the car had a quick laugh with one another about this and then talked about how Jesus wants to be friends with that guy at the bar and how is he going to find out about him unless someone who knows Jesus takes time to share that with him in some relevant way that will connect with him.  I bet he would listen it someone who had a significant relationship with him was talking. 

Who are you in relationship with that needs Jesus?  Do you have a good friend that you can do life together with and sharpen each other as you spend time together.  I am so thankful that God has given me both.