Lose a friend lose God?

Friendships have always been important to me. I consider myself a good friend, but, I guess everyone considers themselves a good friend. I think I'm a good friend because Proverbs says that a friend must show himself friendly. I have so many good (quality) friends that, following the logic of this proverb, I must have been given enough of God's grace to be a good friend to them or they wouldn't stick around as my friend.

Recently, in church, our pastor Eric Lerew asked people why they come to church. My response was meant to be somewhat humorous but actually showed a bit of my heart. I said I come to church because without church I wouldn't have friends. It was meant as a bit of self deprecating humour. I do have friends where I workout at Crossfitfire and I do have friends at work as well as old childhood friends I have stayed in touch with (thanks in great part to Facebook). But as I reflected on my answer, I realized that my friendships are very important and do in fact play a very spiritual role in my life.

Several years ago I posted a series of blogs on how disgusted I was with church and Christians. I really was rather irritated and disillusioned with Christianity in it's present state. The real revelation that came to me recently was that this was during a time in my life that I was very disconnected from any real friendships. We didn't have a church family that fostered close friendships, I didn't have a community of like minded people I worked out with, we hadn't discovered the "magic" of Facebook and My Space and at work I was moving from one office to another rather frequently and not establishing meaningful friendships.

This got me thinking and I've come to a few conclusions. I'm going to cut this one short and make this a series so it doesn't become too long and boring, but stay tuned over the next couple days to see how C.S. Lewis, Lord of The Rings, babies, broken legs, moving in the winter and a splinter in the eyeball all play into the importance of friendships in knowing God more.