thoughts

Today Aug gave the youth group message on Romans 16 and spoke about the importance of godly friendships and it reminded me of an article I read a few months ago. I remember thinking - "this is a really good article" so I thought I would share it on my blog! You can find the article here. All four points are really good but the one that stuck out to me when I first read it was - "In order to be a friend, you must seek to know and be known." In PSYC100, I learned that there's a theory that everyone wants to feel like they belong. I believe that when you seek to know and be know, you're seeking intimacy. We also just had a message on how Jesus called the twelve as his disciples. I think it's amazing that he called them so that they could be with him. The disciples spent the next three years really getting to know Jesus. They followed him wherever he went, ate with him, slept in the same place as him, and just did life with him. This was such a privilege! What amazes me more is that Jesus wanted the disciples to be with him. As a result, the disciples had an intimate relationship with Jesus. I'm sure no one knew Jesus better than his disciples because they followed him wherever he went. In the same way, it's amazing that Jesus desires to have an intimate relationship with me. I also realized that when you keep walking with Jesus, your life cannot be the same. Like the CBF song says -

"little by little everyday,

little by little everywhere my Jesus is changing me 

...I'm not the same old boring person that I used to be."

and so, Jesus is continually changing me to become more like him. Also I believe that godly friends will point you to Jesus. 

hm, there's more that I want to say, but it's really hard to form it into coherent sentences at the moment. I've also been learning a lot of interesting things in my Human Development class. We learned about four different types of parenting. The best type of parenting according to research is the authoritative parenting style. These parents have high demandingness & control but also high acceptance & responsiveness. They will set boundaries for their children but let them explore within the boundaries. After learning about different parenting styles, I realized that God has the best parenting style - and he is the best father.