Friendship with the Lord by Bryan Craig

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

   John 15: 14-15

The first time I went through The Journey in 2006, and I was studying John 15 and the concept of abiding for the first time in my Christian walk (at that time I had been a Christian for 27 years), these verses above in 14-15. I wasn’t sure I could accept the thought that Jesus would call me, “friend.” This speaks to my misperception of God and Jesus. They were real to me, but far away and only accessible through my prayers and other works. I had felt the touch of God and Him teaching me and guiding me from His Word and His Spirit, although I still didn’t understand Who the Holy Spirit was.

This morning, I was reflecting on something important in my life. It is the 5 year anniversary of my involvement in the men’s fitness group, F3. Many of you have heard me talk about this before, but if not, let me give you a little flavor about this. Around 2016, I met Glenn Gordon, who lived in Fort Mill, SC. He was a friend of Ron Griffin, a young man I had guided through The Journey in Tulsa. There were no Virtual groups and no Live groups in South Carolina at the time. So Ron took his friend Glenn through The Journey over the phone. Glenn was involved in F3, which is a national grass-roots men’s fitness organization that stands for Fitness, Fellowship and Faith. Glenn took a group of these F3 men through The Journey, and then, in February of 2018, he planned an event to expose more of the F3 men to The Journey. He invited me to come out and speak to these men. I gladly accepted.

About 2 weeks before my trip out there, Glenn asked me, “Hey, how good of shape are you in?” Thinking to myself, “What does that have to do with anything?” I responded, “Not that good… why?” Glenn said, “Dude, you have to do the workout before you speak to the men or you won’t have any street cred!” I thought he was joking but quickly realized he was not. He told me not to worry about it, but I did! I fretted the next few weeks. I even told my Crossfit friend, David Welton, about it, and he was worried too.

Well, I survived the workout (and didn’t throw up), and I was able to speak to the men about The Journey afterwards. By the way, when you are a new guy, they call you “FNG”, aka “Friendly New Guy” until the end in the Circle of Trust, where they give you an F3 name. While we were marching back to the starting place, we went past a funeral home. I jokingly asked, “Is that where you drop the new guys off?” This comment was brought up during my Naming, and I became “Casket.” LOL.

At the time, F3 did not exist in Northwest Arkansas, not that I would have joined. Fast forward to 2021. I had lost my Dad to COVID in November of 2020, and I was grieving and contemplating life and my own mortality. I felt like I need to pay more attention to my physical health. I prayed a simple prayer, “Lord, I need your help. I need to get in better shape. You know I don’t like gyms. How can I get into shape?” Immediately, I heard in my spirit, “F3”. It resonated with me. I remembered how there was something about the comradery and working out with other men. It was hard, but there was encouragement and laughter and friendship. I contacted Glenn and a few other Influencers F3 guys and told them I was ready to start an F3 chapter here in NWA. I told David Welton I needed his help since I was not the fitness guy, but I was an organizer. Then I got a text from David with a link to F3 NWA. What!?! It had been started in NWA, and I had no idea. The bad news for me was that there was no ramp-up time. I could start F3 that week. Ugh!

Five years ago, June 3, 2021, I went to my second F3 beatdown in the downtown Bentonville Square. I struggled through it, and I nearly threw up, but once again, the encouragement and comradery of the men struck me and kept me coming back. I
vowed I would not quit until I had been 15 times, because I heard that if you do something 15 times in a row, it becomes a habit. Well, here I am, 5 years later, and I still go to F3 three times a week, and it has truly become a big part of my life. It has made me healthier and stronger and more courageous as a leader, and it has given me a great community of male friends of all ages. And I have been able to take several of them through The Journey here, which has helped them with the 3rd F principle of F3, “Faith… you must believe in something bigger than yourself.”

As you can tell, this is a story near and dear to my heart. As I was reminiscing about this, I felt the Lord’s pleasure in sharing this memory with me. After all, He is my friend, and He is part of the story. But there was a little, tormenting voice within me saying, "Quit thinking about your workout group and get busy reading your Bible or praying. This is your quiet time, after all!” So, I opened up my Oswald Chambers devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest” and the reference verse was Psalm 25:14, “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and He makes known to them His covenant.” This struck me immediately because the verse I chose for our Influencers verse on this same day was Psalm 25:12, “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way he should choose.” Just so you know, I keep a list of scriptures that come to me in different ways, and I ask the Lord which one to choose for our Influencers Abide emails. I also try not to send duplicates.

But what I want you to know is that God was telling me something very important. As I abide with Him, He is my friend. He is with me in ALL aspects of life, NOT just when I am at church, reading the Bible, fasting, praying, feeding the homeless, etc. He’s there too, but he’s also with me all day long in everything I do. He rejoices with me in my highs and carries me in my lows. He knows my thoughts, my temptations, my fears, my pleasures, my habits and my hang-ups. He is my best friend, and He knows me better than anyone else. And even this morning, God reminded me of these things and that He shares my excitement over 5 years with F3. He even tied together the scripture from Oswald with the same passage we sent for Influencers. He reminded me that when we “fear Him” which to me, is another way of saying, “when we abide with Him”, He directs our steps, He walks with us like a friend and He reminds us of His covenant with us.

Let me close with a quote from Oswald Chambers, who always says it better than I could:

What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys, or are we telling God our secrets so continually that we leave no room for Him to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God, then we find that God wants to get us into relationship with Himself, to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so wedded to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer — “Thy will be done” — that we catch the secrets of God? The things that make God dear to us are not so much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives.

God is joyful with me at my involvement with F3. He celebrates with me because He is my friend.

(I strongly encourage any man out there to check out F3- there is probably an F3
chapter near where you live. Learn more at www.f3nation.com.)