The Tribune

By Allison Miller

Good company is hard to find. Often times we reminisce about childhood days when we had the best company ever. Now a days we long for that same discovery.

I attended a seminar many Saturdays ago that proved to be very productive and impactful to everyone who attended. The lecturer made this statement: “Loneliness is not the absence of people but it is the absence of God.”

To make that statement was bold and powerful in the sense that it stayed with me months after the seminar was over. Its effect has been so strong that it has caused me to recall times when I was in a room full of people and felt as if I was all by myself. However, I quickly realised that it wasn’t the lack of people but that it was the lack of, “good company”. The good company that I am referring to is God’s company.

Another reality was that I had to stop expecting people to do what I knew that only God could do. Only God can give sincere fulfilment in life. He is the one who made us with a purpose it is up to us to find out what that purpose is. When I said, “lacked” I meant that more of my spare time could have been spent in prayer, mediation and reading the word of God.

The bible tells us that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. In drawing near to God, we form a relationship or a closer relationship with God. In our relationship with God we learn that he is good company. As we begin to understand who God is and how he operates we as human beings are amazed. The bible says that his ways are far from our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Have you ever had a question that needed an answer or a situation that needed dealing with? After keeping God’s company you discover that he is and has the answer to that question and every other question that we have and all of our situations.

As I was having a conversation with a very good friend of mine and she was telling me of a challenging situation and after communing with God she came out with the best solution to her challenging ordeal. After all the smoke cleared, I asked her how she was doing and she said, “Me? I hang out with God, he is good company.”

A lot of the times we have to go through hard experiences to realise what good company God really is. Do we realise that being in God’s company that we are light in a dark world? Or the fact that we are love in the midst of hate? Also that we are peace in the middle of hate. We are all of these positive things because we keep God’s company.