Orlando International Airport (MCO)

As I am sitting in the Orlando International Airport awaiting my flight to Atlanta, I’ve begun to just slow down, unwind, and observe. For the past ten hours or so, my mind has been racing with everything that I needed to have accomplished before I departed Lakeland and all the things I needed to do in my travels to the airport. It’s difficult to accurately describe all that was going through my mind, but let me say it was a lot. Although I’ve traveled alone on multiple occasions, I still have yet to find it as fun as traveling with someone. There’s just a sense of companionship when traveling with another. There’s also a greater sense of security. As I sit watching hundreds of people walk this concourse, I can’t help but to think about relationships.

Relationships are the basic building blocks of societies, cultures, and mankind in general. That’s just simply the way we were created. We have an innate desire to build relationships with others. As I’ve had the opportunity to sit here alone for awhile, I’ve had the time to be able to reflect on the past several months of my first semester in college and all the relationships I’ve built thus far. I thank God so much for the strong born-again peers I have in my life at Southeastern. I’ve built many new relationships that I treasure dearly. As I think about one of my closer guy friends in particular, the verse that keeps coming to mind is “Iron sharpens iron.” How true this statement is! Although Jonathan and I have just recently drawn closer to each other, I find a connection with him. There’s something about his presence that I truly enjoy. I pray for him like a brother. He has such a heart for people and God, it’s amazing. I know one day he will become a pastor, I can just see it in him. He is always challenging me in my relationship with God by the things he says and does. Although we are the same age, I really feel God has given me him as an example of moving to the next step in my relationship with Him. Jonathan and I consider each other our accountability partners and I love just spending time with him. On the flip side of the coin, there’s one relationship in particular that I have that I will be glad when it’s over. I hate to say it, but that’s how I honestly feel. This guy, let’s call him “Bob”, and I became close friends towards the beginning of the semester. We hung out constantly and just spent a lot of time together. I grew to really enjoy his friendship until I started to really get to know him. Although he is a PK, his walk with God is not close at all. Of course, I understood perfectly well that since he’s been in church all his life, he’s probably seen it all; the fakes, the phonies, the hypocrisy, everything. However, I thought that since we had become such good friends, I could influence him to draw closer to God. That wasn’t the only issue. His personality is the complete opposite of mine – he is extremely unorganized, spontaneous, unchallenged and unfocused. How we became close so quickly I still don’t know. Our relationship reached its peak sometime in mid-October and then it just went downhill from there. I found him CONSTANTLY complaining about school, the policies, rules, work, food, everything. I really hated that a lot. I found myself trying to minister to him, but those who constantly complain are never enjoyable to be around so I find myself continually distancing myself from him. There are of course so many more factors that I’m not going to go in to, but now I find us further apart then we were close. He will be attending a different school next semester, so I will just continue to keep him in my prayers.

So, I think I’ll go back to ‘people watching’ and wonder who they are, what their story is, and where they’re going. This week’s prayer request: that I would be more relational. Blessings.