It was clear that she was having an affair. How was I going to approach her? Never mind. I did not have to. She came over to talk to me. I saw her husband outside with the rest of the company. “Why are you coming to me” I thought.

I my dream I was “older” but all the people were folks from my past. Mostly from high school. The house on the other side of town from where I lived. As I walked across the highway, I felt this underlying current of wrongness happening. I could not tell you what it was just that it was. I wandered around the house and people were talking. One of the young people invited me to look at the rest of the house. Everything was dusty with wood dust. She wanted to show me down stairs. As I stepped on the stair, I realized it had a “bounce” to it. It was made out of caning material and the sheet was in tube. It held, but it was sketchy to say the least.

It was when I was leaving the basement I saw her. I quickly surmised the affair. The feelings of guilt I had to have stepped in on something so private. It was not just about the sin. It was the dust. The youth. The feelings of loss.

The whole dream was bizarre as I was older than the rest. That life was laid back and yet there was an ominous feeling in the air. That people had missed the mark. And they did not care. But they continued to encounter me. They would find me in a corner, under a tree by a swing.

The girl in adultery? The one with an affair? She and I had known each other many, many years ago. A friend of mine described her as a queen one day. She said to me, “Lee, you are lucky”. After the days of high school we only saw each other once. She asked me to visit her. I agreed. Clearly she had given up on love, relegating herself to the life of pain she had chosen. Shortly after that she died tragically. Her young life gone. For many a year I wondered if I could have helped. I had tried to talk to her. I even called her after our last meeting. The voice that responded was blank. Days later…

I am an observer. This last week or so I have watched lots of people. They have that blank stare of “I had hope and now I don’t”. I want more for them.

I want them to have the very gift of God I have. I remember my own blank stare. I remember how many friends left this earth and how many we celebrated by sitting on a grave or leaving a bottle behind for them. I counted it miraculous as I missed so many death calls. Perhaps I do not know all but I know enough. I know how many encounters I had with the law. Just prior to my salvation I had my encounter with police, marshals and feds. As I was locked in a bathroom, I begged to a God I did not know to make it go away.

And so as I watch the infighting amongst believers it makes me angry, upset. I just want to be Dad, poppa, grandpa to my family. I want to be friend to the sinner. (If God sees them as a sinner, so must I.) He was a friend of the tax collector and the sinner. A friend. What is a friend? The Bible tells us…well…it means friend. One who “associates familiarly” with another. And it appears that Jesus was indiscriminate on who he was with. (No Calvinistic thinking is all I am saying on this or predetermined I “will be with the right” people tonight.) Did He meet with those not allowed in the synagogue? Clearly. Whether they were handicapped or with crushed stones.(Deuteronomy 23:1 He healed them.) Whether adulterers or prostitutes. And quite probably those who wore clothes of the opposite sex. (Deuteronomy 22:5)

What about the isolationist? The believer who never gets close? Or the proud? Clearly those are stop gaps to bringing the kingdom forth. Anyone can stop sleeping with someone illicitly. But being humble is harder to become. Hard being part of the community rather than sitting on a hill far away. I know I have been there.

As people I know debate the realities of homosexuality and a nation “going to hell in a hand basket” I may have to rethink some things. I sit with the homosexual, the adulterer, the prostitute. I sit with the witch and the warlock. (I am proud of our church fellowship and our standard of embracing the broken, the lost and the depraved when necessary. I love our desire to love.)

To befriend someone to change them is manipulation as far as I am concerned. I no longer sit there in a conversation and think “if I can just get close I can win them for the kingdom”. In one year I saw 50 new people come to the Lord in our fellowship. (Pre-internet, social media and such.) I saw thousands in tent meetings, crusades and revivals. I have done radio, TV and more.)I am sure that in my old way of thinking, I would call that fruit. But God would call it inheritance.

In the midst of it, I was looking for a friend. But at nearly 60, I simply want to love more. Our world is described as a “post Christian, pluralistic” world. I am not looking for “next” because I am looking at now. If we only sit with the “open” we will miss the greatest revival on earth.

Others in this age debate better than I. Many think I have “backslidden” as I minister to the sinner. Or sit with the broken. Like some of my friends I have received the letters, the notes, the phone calls. “Brother, I am calling you to repentance.” Do they not know I am here because of repentance? I am sure some will denigrate and destroy me with their words. They may unfriend me on Facebook or block my messages. That is okay. I will miss your friendship. I will not miss your anger, your rudeness. (I “love” how people desire to rewrite 1 Corinthians 13 to make it easier. “Love is patient. Love is kind.” Where is the exception?)

I get it. I have been there. I have been hard and proud and righteously “angry”. Just stop. Stop it. Think about what you are doing. You are chasing off the very inheritance the Lord has given you by your actions. “The heathen are our inheritance”. You are no different than the prodigal who mispends his father’s inheritance”. At the end of the day there is nothing. And you smell like pigs! Come back to the Father. (Stop acting like the older brother while you are at it!)

To be like Jesus. A friend of sinners. Please for the love of God, stop the infighting.