I'm not sure Jesus was an extrovert. I think Jesus just loved people with everything that he had, but I don't think he walked into any room and said, Where's the party?
You know, but I think he saw people that weren't normally seen. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.
You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. All right, so I just thought of this quote I used years ago in a sermon. I'm going to try and get it right because I know it rhymes. It was something like, To dwell above with saints we love, that would be glory.
To live below with saints we know, that's another story. And obviously it's getting that friendship and connection and how awesome it is when you think about it. But when you live it in real life, it's hard.
It can be messy and tricky and beautiful and ugly, all of them at the same time. So we need help and we've got help in the studio. Aren't you excited? I am. Her name is Amber Lienese. She can hardly keep herself quiet over there. She's like, I got to jump in. I know.
You can jump in now. Give me the ball, give me the ball. Say whatever you want to say, but I mean, you have written a book and you've studied this. This is more than a book. It's a passion.
Yeah, this is what you do with friendships. So talk about why. First of all, tell our listeners what you do. So I am a speaker and an author and a comedian, college professor, a wife to a crazy handsome husband, Scott, and mom to two great adult children, Judah and Josiah. What good names. I know, right? With Josiah, we just thought, well, you know, the Josiah in the Bible, his parents were terrible and he still ended up being good. So it's a lot of pressure off of us.
Let's call him Josiah. But honestly, I'm a person that's still kind of so journeying to try to figure out how to unpack what biblical community looks like. What does it look like to find a community, to thrive in a community, not only in my church, but in friendships as a whole. And so this was such a great project for me because I needed the help. It's so interesting because this week we just interviewed someone on loneliness and how it's an epidemic. It is. And so to have your topic come in after that or whenever it will be aired, this is really needed today. And your book is called The Friendship Initiative.
Thirty one days of loving and connecting like Jesus. Absolutely. I mean, he was the perfect template.
He is the perfect example. And it was one of those wonderful things when the Holy Spirit kind of prompts you to see things in a different way, kind of a different perspective. And I just thought, well, if we do have loneliness and there is disconnection and there are people who are struggle busing to try to find their people and to really thrive. I mean, the Acts 2 Church did amazing things and God used that so beautifully. I can't even see the Acts 2 Church from my life when it talks about sharing everything. I have a hard time sharing a drink of my frappuccino.
I can't imagine. I'm not sharing my possessions. Exactly.
You want to use my lawnmower? Yeah, too bad. But it's an exciting thing to look at how Jesus really loved people well and served them well, even in their interactions, sometimes in the very first glimpses of how he connected with other people. Why 31 days? Well, I think a month is a beautiful season of time to kind of dive in and look at the different ways to do it. But it's not so much.
It's not 984 ways to look like Jesus. It doesn't seem so overwhelming. 31, we can wrap our cerebral cortex around it and make it happen. So that's what started a month toward better friendships. So talk about relationships.
I mean, you open the book with we all crave relationships. We do. We do.
We do. I mean, we were created in God's image and God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is community as the triune God. And when we were created in an image, I truly believe we were created with that kind of community need in our hearts. And so not only are we called to commune with him for sure, and that's the first and most important, but we're also designed to live life with other people. We cannot be a hermit and fully live the gospel concurrently.
We can't. If Jesus' desire for us is to be holy, oftentimes it's relationships that help as the sandpaper, that helps smooth out our rough spots, as it were, but also helps us celebrate how good God is when we do that together. It's been fun to meet your husband, Scott. He's here with you on this trip. But even as we had lunch, you guys are all about people, knowing people, asking good questions. This is a passion that you both carry and it's important to you.
It really is. And yes, some of you could easily say, well, that's easy for you. You're an extrovert. Yeah, that's just who you are. I'm not like that.
Yeah, I don't think you get to... I'm not saying I'm not like that. I was going to say, she is like that. You are so like that. She is like everybody. But a lot of people think I'm an introvert.
I don't feel comfortable in those situations. I'm not sure Jesus was an extrovert. I think Jesus just loved people with everything that he had.
And so he used all the tools in the toolbox to make that happen. But I don't think he walked into any room and said, where's the party? You know, but I think he saw people that weren't normally seen. He went out of his way to make sure that people felt valued and loved by God.
And that is a wonderful first step. I mean, we think about the leper colonies. Oftentimes the leper colonies were far off. On the way to the healing of the ten, it says he left the comfort of the city. He left the comfort of even his disciples. It makes no mention that they were there.
And he went out of his way. And I think the first step is for us to recognize community rarely just comes to us. Nobody has ever said, oh, my goodness, this wonderful, thriving community just fell in my lap.
Nowhere, not ever. Oftentimes we have to initiate, which is vulnerable and which is uncomfortable, whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, to put yourself out there and say, I'm hungry to connect with another person and help them on their journey, spur them on toward love and good deeds. You've probably had this happen to you, but I've heard many women will say to me, I went to this church and nobody's reached out to me. Right. And they say that a lot and they're hurt and they think it's not a friendly place. What would you say when people have addressed that maybe to you?
How do you communicate what it could look like? Yes. So first of all, I want to say that is like saying I was hungry and I walked in the restaurant and nobody just handed me food. It's like, listen, sister, pick up a menu and let people know that you're needing some food.
And I think that that's natural and I think it's normal. But I would say to them, if they recognize the need, recognize that Jesus always took initiative. And if you want to be more like Jesus, maybe that's going to mean that you take that step. My mom used to have this thing and I know it's not original, but of course, I thought my mother was brilliant at the time, which was if you want to have a friend, be a friend.
Yeah. So I will often look, especially on the days that for whatever reason, we are not going to church together. If Scott's busy or he's serving someplace else and I walk into the church, I don't sit by myself.
I always try to find, is there somebody who looks like me who doesn't have somebody sitting next to them? And without exception, you have somebody when I say, can I sit here? Of course.
Yes, that would be great. And so it's taking that. Oh, I need to do that.
What do you mean? If I walk into a church... You do do that. No, I don't always do that. She goes up to strangers in airports.
I'm not kidding. Sometimes I just go incognito into a church and I just sit there by myself on an aisle in the back. But to look for someone else that's maybe alone and ask, do you mind if I sit here? Yeah. I think I'm afraid they'll say yes, but inwardly they want to say no. You think so? I think... No, I think that that's the enemy. Don't you think we all want to be chosen?
It's like fifth grade dodgeball. Sure. We all want somebody to say, I'll take her, right? Yes. Of course. And the other thing that I want to say is I love taking communion with other believers. So it actually, the blessings on me when I ask if I can sit next to somebody, because even though I may be looking for somebody who might need a friend, there is something so delightful about listening to somebody else worship the Lord that they love and to take literally communion together, which is what we have this commonality that we take it together. And so the blessings on me.
I mean, I think you always are blessed by, you know, taking that initiative and reaching out. Are you ever not friendly? I mean, I'm guessing the way you walk in a room, the way you are a friendly, friendly light.
The lights come on. Are there days or hours you're just like, I want to be not around people. Uh, no. There are.
When some people say, well, I'm an extrovert, an introvert, I'm an extroverted extrovert. I really am. Was that your Southern accent? That was.
That was. I was born in San Angelo, Texas, so I do have a Southern accent if I need it. My parents actually paid money for me to take speech lessons because when we moved to California, I was five and I was fixing to do everything and I was fixing and I was fixing and they were like, fixing?
What's that? Should I do one of my exes, Marianne? My boys would tell me, dad, never, never try to do an accent in your sermons because I'm so bad. I can't do it. Are you bad? I mean, I'll try to do a Southern accent.
I'll end up in Liverpool. It's so weird. I'm just going to say you are amazing at a million things.
It's nice that there's one that he's maybe not amazing at. It makes me feel better about myself. When you want to do it, let's do it. Which one do you want? Let's see your Scottish accent. See what? I can't even do it. Scottish. I can do Scottish. Isn't that Scottish?
I'll give it a roll. She's got captain. Whenever I think of Southern, I think of Larry the Cable Guy. Hey, I'm Mater. Hey, I'm sitting Mater. That's pretty good right there. Pretty good right there.
I'm a tornado in trailer park. Mater helped me out. That's the one way out.
That's the one way I can do it there. Anyway, what are we talking about here? We just lost all reality. We talked about, am I ever not joyful or whatever it is. That's what I asked you. I will say my temper can get frustrated and then you know when I'm quiet, that's a pretty good litmus test. No. Oh, heads are going to roll, y'all. There's that, but I also will get quiet, like if I have my feelings hurt or again- You'll go inward. Yeah. Some people are like, wow, I just find him so hard to read. Nobody has ever said that about me because I just, and they think, oh, we're on DefCon 3 already.
So however, I still feel the same vulnerability that everybody else does to put myself out there. Well, take us into your book because in the book you have these encounters. People have encounters with Jesus. Absolutely. Take us into one of those.
We can't do all 31, but give us an idea. Some of the most profound for me, and again, I went to Bible college, I've certainly read the scriptures plenty of times, but when the Holy Spirit kind of gives you a new perspective on things. One that was so profound to me was the woman caught in adultery and although it says in one of the accounts that she stood before Jesus, I always pictured her like thrown at his feet. Yeah, me too. And no matter what, she's in a vulnerable place.
She's probably scantily clad, if clad at all, and totally vulnerable and she's totally mortified to be thrown in front of this person that she probably has no idea who he is. But it says he wrote in the sand and you know, I always want to know what he wrote, y'all. Just so you know. Lori, there are a couple of questions. First of all, why mosquitoes and secondly, why can't jeans fit and number three is what did you write in the sand? I want to know.
You know, inquiring minds want to know. What do you think? Because I've preached on it and everybody has an opinion. So when I started writing this book, all I could think of was, what a sweet thing that Jesus would get in a place of humility because if she's standing there, he took a lower position than she is. Whoa. Is that your insight? That was my insight. That was what the Lord showed me.
Maybe somebody, I don't know if you've heard about it before, but for me, all I could think of was like, how cool is that? Here's this person who was clearly in the wrong and he humbled himself and he put himself in a place of humility so that she could feel seen. And I think that that's our God and he loves us that much. And then he has the audacity to ask us to love others the same, right? And so we get to do the same thing. Even if we feel like we're in the right, we can get to a place where we humble ourselves and we say, I see you and I see that you're going through a hard time and I'd love to co-labor with you on this.
I'd love to be here with you. Wow. That's powerful. I remember.
That's a really good insight. Amber, you're probably not old enough to remember Gary Smalley. Of course. Gary Smalley.
In fact, one of his sons went to Grand Canyon with us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Greg's, you know, a focus now.
But we knew Gary way back when he's just sort of starting his ministry. And one of the things he talked about was in marriage, when you sense that your spouse has a, what do you call it? Closed spirit. Something you've said or done has caused her him to just pull in and he said, here's five steps to open a closed spirit. And step number one was get low. You don't approach them above them. If they're sitting down, get on your knee. If they're standing up, bend down. It's just like, get lower. That's the beginning. Truly a posture of humility. Yep. And that's what you're saying Jesus did.
I was like, oh my God. I never thought of that. Okay, so I have to know, what do you think he wrote in the sand, brother? I do not know. Nobody knows.
It's either names or sins, you know, but what else? I don't know. Wow. I'm thinking he's writing these guys' names down and they're like, I'm out of here. Yeah. He just wrote, you know. Or maybe just their sins.
Yeah. Or who knows? Maybe it's something we never even thought about. I don't know.
That would be an interesting question. I can't wait to hear. I know.
Amber, what does that look like? Have you had that experience where someone has gotten lower than you or that you've been around somebody and you knew like, I need to take a humble posture in front of this broken person? I'm sad to say that I'm a little bit of a slow learner when it comes to humility. I'm not braggadocious.
I'm actually the opposite, which is the tendency to self-deprecating. And somebody recently said to me, your comedy is hilarious, but you know what? You make me feel uncomfortable because with the same breath you will say, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and I know that full well. And then you'll make a joke about how God made your body.
She said, it makes me feel uncomfortable. And I went home that day and I mean, I just got before the Lord and I said, I am so sorry if I have taken people's eyes off of you in my attempt to try to be funny, but I'm so thankful for that. I mean, that was a humility sandwich and those are hard to eat, y'all, those are dry.
No mayonnaise on those humility sandwiches and I chewed on that all day long, but I'm so thankful. I mean, did that change you? Do you think it's going to change your comedy at all? Absolutely. I mean, I know you're going to be cognizant of that now. I think it absolutely. I mean, I don't think we can come in contact with truths like that and it doesn't change us on some level. So do I think I will change some of my jokes? I will. Do I think I will be able to eradicate all self-deprecation? No, that's literally the stance of my comedy.
I've made a living of being a nerd bucket and so it'll be interesting to see what that looks like. I watched you and Scott at lunch and the way you two ask questions from the word go, that's humility. It made this other couple feel so important because it was question after question after question. And I thought, what a great lesson for all of us when you care about somebody enough to ask them real quick and you're not like, I should probably ask questions and act like I'm interested. You were truly interested and I'm like, that's humility. That's caring.
That's what you wrote about. That's friendship. And it's what Jesus did. Absolutely. My friend Mark Fisher says it this way. Curiosity may kill the cat, but it fuels the lion.
And I love that. I think curiosity about other people is one way that we show them value. And Jesus did ask questions as we know.
That was another study that I did, but one of the ways that he initiated friendships was he would ask people about their story and you know, that costs us nothing but words and time. And you know, there will be some people that will tell you their story and they'll just go on and on. You know, those people at the grocery store, you're like, oh, how are you doing today? Steve looking at the name tag, well, my back hurts and I'm frustrated at my wife and this job doesn't pay enough.
And I'm thinking, I just wanted to get my, you know, mangoes and go, I didn't know I was going to be here for a dissertation. But you know, Jesus stood there and listened to people's stories because he valued them. You know, when we'd have people over at our house for dinner and sometimes people we didn't know very well, this is common in our first 10 years of marriage. We get to the door to say good night and almost every time they say, we just had the greatest night ever. Thank you. That was so, just filled us up so much.
And you know what I was thinking? Of course you did. The whole night we talked about you because my wife asked you question after question and that made them feel, I mean, they literally like, this was the best and they didn't even know why. It wasn't the accents you tried. That would have sent them home early, but it was like, it was great, except his Scottish accent is terrible.
I think my Scottish accent was pretty good, but see, see what happened? Yeah. Shall we pray?
I can pray in Hebrew. There you go. That's awesome. But you know, that's true.
We do like to, I mean, psychologists will tell us, we do enjoy the sound of our own name said, and we do love when people ask us questions about ourselves. Okay. Let's talk about this because I know there's listeners going, yeah, but what about when you've been hurt through a friendship?
You know, you developed a friendship, maybe it's a short term or maybe a very long term. Something's been said or done. You've been hurt. They've been hurt.
There's a fence. And Jesus even said, you will not live in this life without an offense. It's going to happen. Absolutely. It's part of the broken world. In this world you will have trouble.
And you'll have a head signs for sure. So now you're, you're sort of reluctant and you're like, I'm pulling away because my heart's been broken. Yeah. And I think that that's terribly normal. And honestly, I think some of those defense mechanisms were straight part of our weaving in our mother's womb, right? To protect us. However, protection serves a purpose in that season, but we're never designed to wear that armor for the rest of our lives. Oh, that's a good way to look at it.
And so it absolutely has a place and time. But as we grow in Christ, he was able to see past, you know, I've always thought like the rich man who says, you know, what do I have to do? And he says, well, you know, do all these things. And he says, I'll do that. He says, you know, sell everything. And the guy said, oh, peace out.
That's a new, new international person. Peace out. You know, that had to hurt for Jesus. You know, the man said, what do I need?
And he said, I'm offering you everything if you sell what you own. And the guy said, no, that had to feel offensive to Jesus. Right?
That had to hurt. It says Jesus looked at him with love. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. See? Crazy. He's a good pastor. I know.
His assets are fairly cloudy, but it doesn't matter. Theology is awesome. Exactly. Actually, it said Jesus looked at him with love.
Oh, I forgive you for that. Okay. Another thing that I think about because we're watching the chosen series right now and the way that they're representing Judas, it makes you realize, like, Jesus walked with him all the time. Yes. Jesus knew him. Right.
Jesus, the disciples were friends with him. Absolutely. And he knew what was going to happen. I know it.
How did he do that? I totally agree. I totally agree. I would have had a big boundary, like, you're going to become Satan. You're going to kill.
I don't even know. Like, he loved him. He absolutely loved him.
He absolutely loved him. And you know what? I can tell you, I can't do that. There are football teams that I don't even know and I have, like, frustration in my heart for. It better not be the Detroit Lions. It is.
No, it's not the Lions. Okay, good. But I do think we just have to recalibrate every day, which is essentially, this sounds like old school religion. And you know what?
There's a reason. It's a classic, which is what would Jesus do? And what we see is he would love people. I also love that there's that wonderful section in the book of John, you know, the one Jesus loves that they reclined at the table. And it was, I think, Brendan Manning's book, Abish Child, when he talked about the fact that John was probably reclining on Jesus, which we don't eat like that.
So it seems kind of odd to us, but they were hanging, they were chilling. And Brendan Manning talked about the fact that if John was reclining against Jesus, he could probably hear his heartbeat. And oftentimes as believers, what can help us recalibrate is putting our head against the chest of the Father and just listening to his heartbeat for us, because it will change then how we see other people. And isn't that the key? Like we can't do that on our own, in our own flesh. Absolutely. It has to be Spirit-led.
You've said that so many times, even today. Like I felt the Spirit, I felt convicted, I felt God moving me. So you're relying on God's Spirit.
That's probably the first step. Absolutely. Well, when we're called to pray for our enemies, for goodness sakes, that is scandalous. Yes. Pray for our enemies.
Right? Do you know what they did? Do you know why they're our enemies?
Because they did this thing and they wronged me. And you know, again, it is not a bad thing to feel wronged, but to stay there forever is not God's best for us. He wants us to walk in freedom. He's come that we might have life and have it abundantly. And you know what?
We can't both have it abundantly and carry around all of these guards concurrently. Yeah. I would just say, I mean, I'm not saying anything. We haven't said this whole program, but in my life, and I think it's true for all of us and I hope for others, the greatest gifts God's ever given me are number one, himself. Number two, Ann and my friends and my family, my sons, but the friendships that I cultivated and it was work and we met and we had conflict and we celebrated and we cried. And I mean, when Ann's sister died and I was in Atlanta to do her funeral, our closest couples, you know, we're down in Atlanta.
We live in Michigan, so we're basically with her family and nobody from our group is going to be in Georgia. And right as the funeral is just about to start, I'm standing in front of this church and the back door opens and four or five couples come walking in, we're like, how in the world did you guys get here? It's our small group and just seeing them at the back, I can see them right now. It was the most emotional part of the day because you feel so lost, you feel so alone.
You're questioning like, Lord, I don't even, what are you doing? And then they walk in and it's almost like they gave me that look like we're here for you. They were your mat mates. They were my mat mates.
The paralytic who needed help to be brought to the feet of Jesus, they were your mat mates. I love that story. That's awesome. Praise God.
Our listeners will love this. This is a great read. It's like a devotional that you walk into the life of Jesus and his friends. And to think that you can go from wherever you are in a month, and again, it's not a perfect guarantee, but if you walk through this in a month, you're going to learn and grow. You will start developing some friendships. You'll have a story like we just told because you decided, I'm going to be intentional about this. I got to become a friend.
I'm going to find friends. Could you see doing this as a family? Oh, 100%.
Absolutely. I've often thought even a friendship challenge. Years ago, we read Kurt Warner's book, his autobiography, and one of the things that we were challenged by is that he talked about the fact that when a waiter or waitress would come to the table, that when he or she left, he would turn or his wife would turn to the kids and say, okay, what color was her eyes? Because they didn't want to raise kids who didn't look at people and really see them.
And something like that, super practical. All of these in the book, I tried to make as practical as possible because it was a wonderful reminder for me. Really how Jesus, down to brass tacks, how do you start those conversations?
How do you show people value and how do you learn and grow in the process? So good. Yeah, really good. Thank you. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to David N. Wilson with Amory.
Amber Lee Niece on Family Life Today. Now before I get going here, Dave and Ann actually have one more thing to say. Okay, so who else scrolled through their newsfeed this morning and saw something divisive?
That's because we're living in this climate that's just reckless. We have these exchanges that are filled with division and that's even among believers. And I think the question is how do we even honor God, you know, hold strong to our beliefs and our convictions. But still find this common ground and extend the love of Christ to others despite our differences. That is the question of the day. We need help. We need biblical, practical wisdom coupled with proven strategies to help love others well. Even those we find most challenging.
So challenging. So listen to this, like tune in right here. That's why we've created a brand new, here this one, free, free, no money, free, video series with Amberlee Niece titled Moving Toward Each Other in the Middle of a Divisive World, Building Peace in Our Own Backyards.
Yeah, you're going to love it. And you can sign up today and Amberlee will walk you through the practical steps to building bridges over the chasm of differences by focusing on the heart and the character of Jesus. And I'm just going to say, if you've listened to Amberlee on this segment or on other segments, she's full of wisdom, godly grace, humor, but she's funny and really practical as well. So to get this resource, you can go to familylife.com slash finding common ground.
Again you can get the resource at familylife.com slash finding common ground. Now Amberlee, in addition to all of her other talents, is a writer and she's written a book called Friendship Initiative, 31 Days of Loving and Connecting Like Jesus. So this is a 31-day devotional by Amberlee Niece that will help you to connect not only with Jesus, but also others in your natural circle of influence.
You can get your copy right now by going online to familylifetoday.com in the show notes or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329. Again that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now coming up tomorrow, explore how to navigate conflicts and find common ground in your relationships as Amberlee Niece comes back and helps us with practical tips and loving despite differences. That's tomorrow, we hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
