Wednesday, June 3

friends

relationships are so awesome! they're terribly difficult and impossible without the Lord. I like to meditate on friendship because I usually learn something and I always recall the great friendships God has given me which causes thanksgiving and once again draws me to Him
I think to be a good friend you have to first seek God
a few Emerson quotes that come to mind- "we must be our own before we can be another's" "shall I not be as real as the things I see? if I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are"
how I think all of that is related- truth and honesty permit friendship. if we are not honest with ourselves then we will not be honest with another. to know ourselves means knowing Christ. (I'd say without Christ all of that's impossible, with Him we can struggle)
deep vs. super(ficial) I think we're blessed to have either/or both. good friends run from nothing. if a friend will not go "deep" when you're taking them there, then they're protecting themselves from something they fear will hurt them and not allowing some burden to be exposed/shared. they're missing out on a blessing (the sharing of the burden, which is a strong sign of a good friendship) this sort of experience reveals something about the relationship but doesn't disqualify it as a friendship (I think it's easy to write people off, when as a Christian we're called to love them *unconditionally)
there are definitely many levels of friendship. there was a time in my life when I thought I'd be closer than a brother for anyone/everyone... obviously I quickly realized that just wasn't good or beneficiary. I think we can have many acquaintances. close friends are more rare and friends that are closer than a brother- we should be so blessed to have three in a lifetime. why three?
Ed Young Jr. used to talk about relationships/community, etc. and said Christ led by example having a close circle of twelve friends with which He could minister to prostitutes, thieves, thugs and worse. He celebrated festivals with them, went on road trips with them, ate with them, spent most of His days with them. this was His community. within those twelve there were three to which Christ was closer, closer than a brother. those men bore each others burdens, those were the people that could go deep without hesitation. another example of a relationship like Christ and the three would be David & Jonathan. something to recognize is how infrequent those type of friendships were in those men's lives, this hopefully calls us to a gratefulness for God's blessing of friendship.
to quote Emerson again-"my friends have come to me unsought. the great God gave them to me."
when God chooses to give us friends, He doesn't always write on the wall whether they'll be an acquaintance, a part of our twelve or closer than a brother- so we'd better stop trying to read the wallpaper.
*I was going to share another Emerson quote on unrequited love but I can't find it, will have to type it up later (which, for my money, unrequited love is the beginning of selflessness, love and friendship. as Bonhoeffer said, "it is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated.")

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