God loves us enough to be honest about our shortcomings.

Here's Amy Baker.

The thing about God is he is patently honest about people.

And in fact, he tells us in the New Testament the whole reason he gave us the Old Testament was as an example so that we could be learning these things.

And he doesn't hide, he doesn't cover up, he doesn't wash white things.

When there are problems, God lets us know about it, but then he teaches us how we need to be dealing with those

problems. This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Lee-Demause for Friday, July 4th. I hope you're having a meaningful Independence Day celebration today.

Many of us will be getting together with friends on this holiday, making it a good day to evaluate the spiritual significance of friendships.

Here's Nancy to get us started.

I can remember when I was a little girl, something that, well, you may think it's kind of strange,

but I was one of these children who loved school.

I loved studying.

I loved books.

I loved teachers. I loved classrooms. But I didn't like recess, weekends, holidays. And one of the reasons was I didn't know how to relate to my peers. I was a

strange little girl. And it's amazing how some of those childhood habits and patterns can go with us into adulthood.

So as I've become a woman, one of the things I've sought to do is to learn how to talk with

people, to relate to people. Now, you may think I'm really outgoing, but the truth is I'm really a

pretty shy person. And it's not easy for me to get out of myself and to engage in conversation with

people I don't know and to cultivate friendships. So we're talking this week about the

importance of cultivating godly friendships, friendships that reflect to the world, what God is

like and how he befriends us. And to help us do that is a woman who's become a new friend of mine, Dr. Amy Baker.

She's a biblical counselor.

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