Time with friends can "Cheer" you up

April 24, 1:51 PMFaith & Culture ExaminerDr. Bob Beltz

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       Revisiting  Kelly's Bar - Old Westport, Kansas City

I’ve been a bit out of commission for the last week and a half. I had surgery on my knee the day after Easter, and just about the time I was able to be up and about I flew to Orlando to attend a conference. It has been a number of years since I’ve been in Florida and the trip enabled me to reconnect with a number of good friends I haven’t seen in far too long. One of my friends is battling cancer. His white blood cell count is so low that we had to sit on opposite sides of the room to protect him from any germs I might have brought to the party. We have the kind of friendship that picks up exactly where we left off the last time we were together. Even separated by the space of the room, we were emotionally as close as ever.

I also was able to spend a day with another good friend I had not seen in a couple of years. This friend is one of  “a few good men” with whom I share my life and from whom I receive invaluable counsel. Being with him reminded me of how much I have missed seeing him and how important true friendship is in our lives.

A number of years ago I addressed this subject as it relates to the church and our spiritual lives. I made reference in the message to the first time I heard the theme song from the TV show “Cheers.” If you don’t remember the song, it went something like this:

     Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.                                                                                                                    Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.

Pretty relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in! The song then asked the question:

     Wouldn’t you like to get away?

And then it described the kind of place we all wish we had:

     Sometimes you’d like to go where everybody knows your name. And they’re always glad you came.                                                    You want to be where you can see, the troubles are all the same. You want to be where everyone knows your name.

I think I was walking through my living room when I heard these lyrics for the first time. I remember coming to a complete stop and thinking, This ought to be the theme song of the church!   I’m of the opinion that when God created us, he hard-wired us with the need for community and friendship. In response to creating us this way, he also designed a number of relationships to meet this need. When they are missing in our lives, we feel isolated and lonely.

I am a very blessed guy. I have friends. I have a large number of casual friends, and I also have a handful of very good friends. Most of the "casual" category came through my involvement over the years in the faith community. A good church is a great place to meet friends. A good church should be a place where everybody knows your name, and they are always glad you came. Everyone needs a place like this. I remember using the illustration in my message of a bar I frequented during my university days in Kansas City. The name of the bar was - and still is - “Kelly’s.” If you are from KC, you know it is a bona fide landmark. I remember it as being very funky, with the floors filled with peanut shells, the atmosphere one of acceptance, and a place where I would probably run into a few friends. Sometimes places like Kelly’s can be more like what the church is intended to be than a lot of churches! For some crazy reason we often seem to think we need to get all dressed up and put on a happy face to go to church. I guess a little of that is to be expected. But wouldn’t it be refreshing if you could walk into church and let loose with a loud, “Crap!”, when everything in your life feels like it is going sideways and you need to be honest with someone?
Church can be a place where you meet people who can potentially become good friends. I have heard a statistic, which I can’t validate, that said it is only possible for any of us to have 74 friends. If you go to a church with a whole bunch of people, you can’t expect to be good friends with all of them, but you can expect to find a few people that you can invest time and energy getting to know and hopefully with whom you can develop good friendships. That leads me all the way back to my thoughts in Orlando.

Over the last few years, I’ve often not invested the time and energy I need to invest to keep my friendships fresh. True friendship, and deeper friendship, requires work on our part. It takes time. Busyness is the enemy of friendship. I am busier right now than I have ever been in my life. I think I am probably too busy. Busy, busy, busy. If you say it enough times and look at the word as you say it, you will eventually get dizzy and realize you are too busy. If you don’t get dizzy, try spinning around in circles while you say it. Sound crazy? Exactly! So is spending so much time living such a hectic pace that you don’t have time for friends.
So here are a few ideas about how to “Cheer” you up:

• Take a little inventory. Ask yourself, “Who are my true friends?”
• Think about the last time you planned time to get together with them.
• Pick up the phone and give them a call and tell them you were thinking about them.
• Plan time to get together.
• Repeat the above steps frequently.

As I was leaving Orlando a thought came to my mind. It was a phrase I’ve heard on a number of occasions in relationship to what is important in life. It goes something like, “You never hear someone on their deathbed saying they wish they had spent more time at the office.” I found myself wondering if someday, when it was too late to do anything about it, I would find myself saying, “I wish I had spent more time with my friends.”