Friendship

by Ron Hughes

Relationships enrich our lives.  None of us can survive indefinitely without the input of others.  I have relationships with a mechanic, a doctor and a dentist, a plumber, an electrician and a few others I really can’t do without.  Helpful as all of these individuals are in making my life roll along a little easier, I wouldn’t say that I have friendships with them.  After all, I pay these fine people for their help.  Even though we are on what I would call friendly terms, I have the distinct impression that without the financial aspect of our relationship they wouldn’t care if they ever saw me again. Friendship is different.  It has a large voluntary aspect to it.  We may not have a lot of choice concerning the people we will meet in life, but we do have choices about the level of relationship we develop with those we do meet. 

What are friends for?  That’s a rhetorical question.  We seem to instinctively know that friends are there to help us when we’re in trouble.  But if you’re looking for help, you want to look in the right place.  Not everyone you meet would be a good candidate for friendship.  Some may be more of a hindrance than a help.

It is a sad fact of the human condition that it is much easier for us to be influenced toward moral decline than elevated to moral heights.  We are like birds in flight overcoming the physical law of gravity.  Only as long as they are putting energy into flying, do they stay in the air.  Only as long as we are intentional about moving toward God, do we do so.  You know that being with some friends is spiritually helpful.  There are others you may know who have the tendency to bring you down.

So if you are lonely, be careful about who you become close to.  Use your discretion, avoid those who, while offering you the pleasure of a social relationship, have a negative influence on your spiritual life.  “The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.”

Here’s counsel about friendship from the Bible. Proverbs 18:24 tells us: “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”  For now I want to think about just the first line of this couplet which tells us that if we’re hoping to have friends we had better be prepared to be friendly.  What does that mean? There are a few things I’ve observed about friendliness.

If you are looking for a friend because you feel a need to talk about yourself, remember to save at least half of the time of each conversation for your friend to talk about him- or herself.  One of the big reasons people resist attempts at friendship from others is because they can’t stop talking about themselves.  Show yourself to be friendly by letting your friend talk as much as you make him or her listen.

Friendliness is characterized by a favourable attitude.  You can’t expect to win a lot of friends if you have negative tendencies which you express freely.  Few of us are attracted to people who are critical, argumentative, antagonistic.  You will observe that with some frequency there will be weaknesses in your friend’s logic, flaws in his thinking and outright errors in his facts, but if you always react to these and don’t look for the areas where you agree, you won’t be friends for long.  Show yourself friendly by spending at least half of your time together agreeing with what your friend has right.

One of the things we all value about friends is their personal warmth and comfort.  The world is a pretty cold, miserable place for some people and they don’t need you to add more of the same.  We’ll find it easier to make friends when we keep our time together focussed on the positive.  Show yourself friendly by lifting your friend’s spirit with your positive attitude about life in general and your relationship in particular.

I’ll mention one more thing before moving on.  That is accessibility.  This is something which needs to occur on more than just the physical level.  Long-distance friendships are hard to maintain because the distance usually limits our access to each other.  When we shut ourselves off from others and don’t have time for them or don’t reveal anything about ourselves, we seem distant and aloof.  Let me encourage you to show yourself friendly by being emotionally accessible to others as well as just making time for them.

Loyalty is an important quality of friendship.  Loyalty is about allegiance, faithfulness, devotion and attachment.  Loyalty normally only becomes evident in the bad times.  When all is well, our loyalty is seldom tested.  But when you are falsely accused, in trouble of some kind, or genuinely in the wrong for some reason, you will quickly find out who your real friends are.  They are the ones who remain loyal.  Even though it may cost them something to be associated with you at the time, they do not withdraw.  They put their personal status and perhaps even safety on the line for you.

Conversely, when your friend is in trouble, he will be able to see whether you are just a fair-weather friend or if you are the real thing - a loyal faithful friend.  When you are tempted to turn your back on a friend because maintaining your relationship might reflect badly on you, think twice before you run for cover.  Your actions are going to speak very loudly on such an occasion.

Jesus loyalty to His friends never faltered even though they deserted Him.  His faithfulness to His Father never wavered even though God laid the consequences of our sin and rebelliousness on Him.  If you want to see what loyalty in the face of trouble looks like, look at Jesus.

You’ve probably heard of a “whisper campaign.”  This is a tactic which involves secrets, innuendo, and gossip.  Nothing is spoken out in the open where it can be challenged.  Instead unsubstantiated rumours are whispered from one to another.  Sometimes, the intent is malicious.  At other times, the intent is more to raise the status of the whisperer because he or she seems to know things others don’t.  In either case, friendships can be destroyed when a whisperer goes to work.  At all costs, avoid whispering about your friends or you soon won’t have any.  If you have a genuine concern about someone’s integrity, have the courage to address the issue directly and privately instead of resorting to the coward’s technique of asking whispered questions of third parties.

Gossip is sometimes called “tale-bearing.”  You might call it “tattling.”  At any rate, it’s repeating unsavoury details about the life of another.  This isn’t like the whisperer who does his work sowing doubt about a person’s character on the sly.  The tale-bearer can be quite public about his truthful proclamations - but they are motivated by the desire to bring the other down or to advance one’s own cause.  Once again, we have something to avoid.  No one is ever benefited or encouraged by your passing on stories about someone else’s weakness or failure.  When you get involved in this, you are definitely in the devil’s territory.  He is called “the accuser.”  When you use his tactics, you betray his influence.

I want to go back to the first verse we looked at, Proverbs 18:24.  We already talked about the first part: “A man who has friends must himself be friendly.”   Now I want to consider the second part: “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”  Thankfully, I’ve never personally felt the pain of being personally rejected by a close family member.  I’m truly thankful for that because I’ve seen what it can do to people.  When people find themselves deserted by family members, they often turn to friends to help soothe the pain.  It is at times like this that we learn to truly value our friends.  We like to believe the old saying that “blood is thicker than water,” but sometimes it seems to not be true.  The worse thing is to be abandoned by both family and friends.  How can you survive?

Those who know me very well, know that eventually I’ll get around to telling you about the all-time best friend any of us can have.  Ironically, it was the religious crowd who rejected his friendship who gave him the nickname that makes him special to so many of us.  They contemptuously called him “the friend of sinners” (See Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34).  But for those of us who know that we are sinners, this is good news.  The fact that the very Son of God would hang out with sinners so much that he’d get labelled as their friend is rather heart-warming.

Shortly before His death on the cross, Jesus said to His followers: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”  (John 15:15 NIV)  Jesus came to convey the depth of God’s love for His human creation.  He invites us to respond, to leave the life full of ourselves (which is really empty) and choose the life full of Him (which is really abundant). 

Regardless of the number of human friends you have, Jesus is one friend that you can count on.

Click here to go to the second part of this series.