So, Knuckles and I started talking about what it means to be a friend and the risk that involves. I mean to truly be a friend requires honesty and transparency that is often mistaken for weakness. It is the willingness to allow people into your life, to know your thoughts, your hopes, your struggles, and your dreams. It means sharing a part of yourself and investing it in the life of the other person in the hopes that that investment will mature and promote growth in other investments while furthering enabling the original investor. It is a growing process that requires prayer, openness and sharing in not only the joys but also the pains, the triumphs and the discouragements of another person. Unfortunately, because friendship require such baring of the soul, it may also lead to the pain of a poor investment, the loss of time and other commodities that may be misused or lost due to the insincerity or distrust of those being invested in. In other words, sometimes you get burned by the market. So why take the risk? Because "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."[1] That friend is the one to seek out. The one that will be there for you no matter what you’re going through. The one who loves you in the thick of battle and the thinness of poverty is the one to cling to and never let go. This is the kind of friend that reminds you of good times, holds you up during the bad times, and pushes you to fly. You in turn can trust them fully and encourage them to press forward. You see each other in fullness, accepting each other’s imperfections along with the strengths, and forgiving each other when those imperfections cause pain. However, this forgiveness is often accompanied by repentance or mutual grief, for such a friend pushes you to look beyond yourself to others in the world surrounding you.
Mike Godzwa once said of dating relationships that “a good relationship expands your circle of influence.” I firmly believe that this applies to all relationships, though especially dating relationships. Concerning friendships, it means expanding to the mutual influence of each of you upon each other, and in turn upon each other’s friends through personal involvement or acceptance of personal growth that others can see, because, “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."[2] You can’t sharpen a blade and not have that sharpening be noticed by the next person to pick up the blade. In the same way, you cannot hold someone in your trusted counsel and not have them influence how you interact with others and with your own priorities.
This change may simply be the focused sharpening of confirmation in your established relationships and goals, or it may be the full impact sharpening of challenging what you think, see, believe, hope, or seek. Either way, you are shaped by those you take into your confidence. Thus honesty and transparency become even more key to determining the quality of a friend and the quality of your character in friendship, because “wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."[3] In other words, a friend who does not encourage you to improve yourself or to question yourself in doubtful situations is no true friend at all. If someone is too afraid to call me out on issues that I need to work on in my life, then they are no close friend. And if I am unapproachable or too afraid to ask a friend about a questionable action or attitude, then I need examine if I am empowering them by being a good friend.
This does not mean that we are to become combative and hurtful. After all, it is “Better to live on a corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife,"[4] and “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.”[5] The same can be said of friends; quarrelsome, combative behavior gets tiring. Rather a humble spirit of forgiveness and love is the key in balancing challenge with encouragement, hope with trial, and defiance with care.
So, as imperfect people how do we achieve such balance that looks out for the well being of a friend. The answer is simple, and yet, amazingly complex. According to Proverbs, "A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity."[6] I can’t hear that verse without thinking of the love chapter, specifically what love is and is not.
“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil; but rejoices with the truth.”[7]
When setting my friendships up against this standard, I’ve never passed the test. Whenever I’m frustrated with a friend, I start asking myself, “Am I being patient? Am I being kind? Am I envying what they’re doing, or who they know?” By the time I get through them all, if I can continue after those first three, I discover that its amazing that that person is friends with me and that I should be more thankful for their friendship. After all, you have to be a friend to have one. Christ led by example and so should we.
[1] Proverbs 18:24
[2] Proverbs 27:17
[3] Proverbs 27:6
[4] Proverbs 21:9
[5] Proverb 27:15-16
[6] Proverbs 17:17
[7] I Corinthians 13:4-6
