The Necessity of Friends

Life is a constant challenge and can be an overwhelming adventure more akin to rowing a sinking boat than living a life.  But, like pushing a stalled truck up a hill, it can be manageable with the help of another person.  The other people who can continually help us in the labors of life are our friends and friendship is a powerful key to successful Christian living.  And, like much of life, friendship is an ordeal that should not be undertaken without intentionality and focus.

Naturally, there are two parts of friendship, offering friendship and receiving friendship.  Both parts are important and necessary in friendship.  At the onset, honesty and availability form the basis of quality friendship but the different expressions of friendship, offering or receiving, contain differences.  Understanding the various aspects of offering and receiving friendship is a fruitful endeavor in becoming good and effective friends.  Due to scope of this discussion, the elements that pertain to offering friendship will be examined.

Offering friendship requires care and the willingness to be direct.  Care is necessary during hardship.  As Solomon writes, "A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity (Pro. 17:17)," and continued, "If a friend falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up (Ecc. 4:9b-10)!"  Truly, it is in hardship that friends are weighed for their worth and in trials that true friends are found.

Additionally, being a friend requires a readiness to call the other person out.  We, as friends, have a responsibility to keep each other on the path by being direct in challenging one another when we may be straying.  Solomon writes about this too, "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses (Pro. 17:6)" and again, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another (Pro. 27:16)."  This should not be overlooked or neglected for the fear of uncomfortability.

The value of friends is that they will have the merit in our lives to challenge us to live more for God.  We each have blindspots that can hinder our sanctification and fruit-bearing growth.  Because of this reality, we have a responsible obligation to help one another, with love and gentleness, to see the blindspots in order to grow more in Christ.  Let us strive to offer good and sincere friendship of care and of challenge as Christ works in us to work in our friends!