Who do you think of when you hear the word “friend?” Does it remind you of a childhood friend? A high school or college friend? Do you have a “best friend?” Henry Ford said, “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” I love that thought. Friends will be able to “tell” when things aren’t right and will stay with you until you’re okay.
But what is a friend? Is it really the number of people who “like you” on Facebook? The dictionary says that it’s “a person whom one knows and has a bond of mutual affection.” It’s someone that you like, trust, and respect. You usually have something in common with the other person. Perhaps, you have mutual friends or you are in the same period of life, such as “parents of toddlers” may become friends because they have so much in common. Sometimes your work family become dear friends because of the time spent together, working toward a common goal. Your church family should definitely be a “home of friends.”
Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 states that “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.” That’s what true friends do – “They walk in when the rest of the world is walking out.”
Years ago, I read a short poem by George Webster Douglas that I’ve never forgotten. “What made us friends, in the long ago – When we first met, Well. . . I think I know. The best in me and the best in you, hailed each other because they knew. That always and always since life began. Our being friends was part of God’s plan.“
As the old song goes, “Make new friends, but keep the old – One is silver and the other gold.” I’m glad that we’re friends! God Bless, Courtney
Love the Douglas quote–don’t think I’ve heard this before.
In the late 60’s when I was reading every C. S. Lewis book I could find, I read his The Four Loves. It seemed to fit my experience, but some people I knew found his chapter on Friendship unintelligible, and other found it just wrong. They did not un-convince me.