The REAL Friendship
He who has found a friend has found a treasure. This is the essence of real friendship. It is frustrating to see seemingly bonded friendships fall apart but it is also overwhelming to see all of them grow and mature with their newly found company of friends.
In real friendship there must be truthfulness and kindness. Real friends tell you about their lives and share with you their woes and happiness. Their words and deeds show kindness. They don’t always tell you what you want to hear, insteadm they are willing to rebuke you if necessary out of love for you.
Real friendship also promotes love and humility. Real friends are humble and they demonstrate love. The caring and sharing that friends experience together teach us how to love concretely. Whenever we can give up our pride and accept that others are better than us is certain areas; when we can say sorry for hurting a friend or seek reconciliation first after a hurt, we are learning to be humble. All of thses happen in our interaction with friends.
And in real friendship there is faithfulness and loyatly. Real friends never leave. They always stand by your side to help and guide you. Because friends know and understand each other, they can depend on one another . Real friends protect us from other people and help us clarify our stand when we are misunderstood. Genuine friends likewise honot each other’s word and respect each other’s uniqueness. Friendship is give and take and the saying that says "the more we give, the more we receive," manifests among friends.
God intends relationships and friendships to be the context in which He does some of His most important works in our lives. Life is difficult from any perspective, and everyone needs friends to help him/her through the difficulties times.
Those who have real friends know they couldn’t live without them. Real friends love you enought to confront you when you are wrong and to stand by you throught thick and thin. These are friends who act toward you like a marriage partner is supposed to for better or for worse. If you have a friend like that, you are rich. If you are have more than one you are wealthy and beyond measure. In today’s world, many people do not take time to cultivate committed friendships, and they are the poorer for it.
But the need for committed friends doesn’t mean we should rush our and try to accumulate them on a wholesale basis. Many things in life are not left to our choosing, but friendships are. The choice of friends is more than a right, however it is a responsibility.
It is important to choose our friends because we will always become like them in the end. It is fine to have casual friendship with those who do not possesss the qualities of real friends that we can treasure, but not committed friendships. It is when we begin to open ourselves up to tohers on a committed level that we are likely to be influenced to become like them.
Sometimes we forge friendships with those people who don’t have the same values as ours thinking we can change them. But in teh end, both will be changed. We shouldn’t make committed friendships with people who have distorted values but we should look for faithful and real friends.
Written By: Jeffrey Verula
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