Your Friends are very much prized, O God (Psalm 138,17 LXX; MT139,17)

But for me, your friends are very much prized, O God. I was just meditating on the nature of friendship when I came across this verse in the Septuagint this evening. Yesterday morning I had a surprise send off after spending two nights and preaching 3 times in a faraway village. It was most encouraging to hear a number of youth leaders (again all young women, why no men?) who encouraged me from the pulpit by saying how they were blessed by the three messages. Little did I knew they intended to take me for breakfast 35 kms away in Tenom township,  the closest town to the village. We went to the open market stalls there and we had the tastiest of Yong tao Hu with rice. I had not had rice for breakfast for a long time so it was a nice change sitting with four youth leaders all female and the only male in company was the church pastor accompanied by his wife.
Then one of my students who just graduated suddenly appeared and came by and joined us. It is incredible that I now have student pastors at every corner of Sabah. I was hugely encouraged two weeks ago in Nabaha when four of my students greeted me after the service and we had late supper together. Indeed these are my friends because they are first God's friends and as Psalm 16 says they are the excellent ones on earth and they are highly prized by God and men. We had sweet fellowship for an hour and at 10am from Tenom we drove back to Kota Kinabalu arriving in the capital city just before 2pm.