Best friends and the ultimate friend

In our youth, we often have a best friend. There is a particular joy in having and being a best friend.    I am thinking just now of several friends of mine, and each in my mind is a 'best' friend.  Yet  I don't find myself feeling disloyal or fake in claiming them each as in that category.  A few months ago, I came up with this saying and sent it to several  'best' friends.  It goes:  "In my banquet of friends, you are the dessert."  This is  a heartfelt complement.  I trust that each finds joy in being so named, and that angel food cake, apple pie, and doughnuts can all be desserts that delight in blessing my life.  We can never have enough quality friends.

 

The ultimate friend is Jesus the Savior. 

'I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.' John 15:15

Being significant in a Big Universe

Checking current astronomy, it seems we live in a universe that is at least 150 billion light years in diameter.
Remembering that light travels 186,000 miles per second, doing that for 150 billion years certainly implies that our universe is BIG!
The Psalmist and King David considered this, and was amazed that God considered the small humans on this speck called earth to be not only significant, but very important.
Here's Psalm, 8:3-4.
'When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?'

We 'people' ask questions about our place in the universe, whether our lives have meaning, purpose, a destiny, a future.  If we had no input from God, the conclusion might be pretty dismal, that we have somehow developed self-consciousness, but are only complex chemical organisms with no real significance.
Looking at the universe's size and our size, the billions of stars, planets and other objects of space, we do seem insignificant.  We are shocked to hear what God has to say:
'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life'  John 3:16
A revolutionary idea comes to us. We can measure distances in space, even build rockets to send our senses beyond our reach to see and test what is beyond us.  However, the Bible tells us that who we are, where we come from, and where we may yet be are unbounded by space and time.  We are part of a creation and plan of a higher mind, a greater personality, a God not of our making, but  one who is making something of us.

Information and insight-not the same

This, we are told, is the information age. Yet God our creator calls on us to apply wisdom to life. This is beyond information, and means that information and insight are not the same. Hopefully, this blog can share helpful information, but also stir up some insight, so that its readers can benefit in a spiritual and life-affirming way.
During my career as a public school teacher, spiritual truths and their eternal implications were more or less off the table as to content. In that respect, I have been tempted to place an ad in the local paper apologizing to my thousands of students for failing to teach them the Christian faith, which is the curriculum that could change their character and eternal destiny. What American public education fails to teach is actually crucial

The hint is there in Psalm 90:12
'Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.'
Plus Proverbs 9:10 ' The fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.'