True Friends

“As soon as he was finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”             1 Samuel 18:1

How many friends do you have on Facebook? One hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? More? Now, think about why they are listed as your friend. Are they actually someone with whom you discuss issues of life, or take advice from? Can you describe those people, including their likes/dislikes, goals in life, struggles they are dealing with? Maybe you can, or maybe you have been sucked into trying to see how many people you can have listed as your “friend”.

It feels good to have lots of “friends”, but if you really needed help, how many of them would be able to come to your aid? There are lots of relationships in our lives. There are relationships that you have no control over, like your family. There are relationships that are not good influences in our lives. And there are relationships that we would be wise to keep. As Christians, we are called to be friendly towards all people, but friends with a few.

True friendships require a lot of work. A lot of time, energy, and investment go into them, so we can’t afford to have tons of friendships. They are carefully cultivated from the ground up. They are the people that we confide in and share our happy, sad, frustrated, and disappointed times with. They are the people we turn to for advice. When we need help, they are there for us.

Read 1 Samuel 18-20. A great Biblical example of one of these friendships is between David and Jonathan. What attributes do you like about David and Jonathan’s relationship? Are there people in your life that are like Jonathan? How many people can you call your true friend? If you can’t think of anyone, maybe you need to answer this question, “Who are your real friends?”