I have a lot of ‘friends’ on Facebook. Some are business friends. Some are ministry friends. Some are merely acquaintances. Others are very close friends. Some I’ve just met. Others I’ve known nearly all my life. I have friends from Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, and all over the country and world. I never knew I had so many friends.
Life is a series of human relationships – friendships. It is very important that we develop each to its fullest. Many recognize the importance of the parent-child relationship, the husband-wife relationship, the brother-sister relationship, etc. There is, however, a need to recognize the importance of the friend relationship. Here are a few of the advantages of friend relationships.
1. It is one of the few relationships that we choose. We do not choose our mother, father, brother, or sister, our son, or daughter. God chooses them for us. Because he does, they are sacred relationships. The friend relationships are sacred because they are chosen by us. I chose to be your friend. If you are my friend, you chose to be my friend. What an honor we have given to each other. Of all the people in the world we have given our friendship to one another. How sacred a relationship.
2. Friendship is one of the few relationships that never changes. The child grows up and leaves home. The parent grows old and passes away. Brothers and sisters move away from home. At first the child needs the parent; later the parent needs the child. Even in marriage the needs change with the passing of years. In friendship it need not be so. Many of us as parents admit that about the time we learn how to be parents, the children are grown. But the friend relationship is one of the few, if not the only one, where one can spend years becoming an expert and still have time to use what we learn.
3. The friend relationship is one that can be for life. The age difference in the parent-child relationship often carries it to be a brief one. But because friends normally are in the same age bracket, it is a relationship that lasts longer than do most relationships.
4. One need never give up one friend for another. In some relationships of life there can be only one. In the friendship relationship the one relationship need not be traded if another is acquired. This relationship is never lost to another. You may be my friend and someone else’s friend. When I become a friend to another, I may still be your friend.
5. The friend relationship is one that can be completely spiritual. Most of life’s relationships are based upon physical needs. To be sure, there are spiritual needs also. In any relationship of life the spiritual should be uppermost. I can become your friend, however, without there being one physical need for you to supply. Our souls may be knit together, and our relationship need not be based upon the satisfying of physical appetites.
Here are a few other advantages of the friend relationship:
6. The friend relationship is one that needs not the acceptance of another.
7. It can be a completely unselfish relationship.
8. A friend can be chosen at any time of life.
Friendship is a high and important relationship. Few ever know its depth. Most never know a true friend, and certainly, many are never a friend.
Happy is the person who has a friend. Happier is the person who is a friend. Happiest is the person who has a friend and is a friend. Oh, how happy I am!
You can read some of my other articles on friendship: 3 Qualities of Real Friendship, A Story of True Friendship: David & Jonathan, What a Friend We Have In Jesus.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks