Faithful Friends...

As a mom of three girls, we have had many a conversation about picking faithful friends. About how important it is to surround ourselves with those one or two safe people. With that friend that sticks closer than a brother. I have watched all three of my girls be hurt by a friend. And I have watched each of them be the cause of hurt to a friend. It never ceases to amaze me how deeply we can be hurt by those we thought were our "friends".


Sometimes those "friends" that hurt us are family or a spouse or even a "spiritual" mentor. I have people who have been a huge part of a season in my life that I never see or talk to anymore. Family relationships seem to go through seasons too. Life is busy and all consuming sometimes. And in our own little world we tend to put expectations and needs on those closest to us.


But the Word tells us to cast all of our burdens and anxiety on Him because He will take care of us. And He will. We just lean toward people with skin on. We look to others to fulfill us. To make it all better. To be on our same page and in our same thought process. It is when those expectations aren't met that we get hurt. We pout and get mad. We take our toys and go home because we don't want to play anymore.


God created us to be in relationship. To celebrate life together. To cry together. To laugh together. To reach out and to love well. But it is an active reaching not a passive receiving. I have discovered over the years that too many people base their idea of who God is on who their friends are. On what they get from the people around them. Of how they are made to feel and what group they are allowed to be a part of. Too many of us get our self worth by who we are or are not friends with.


But Jesus says that He is all we need. That He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. That He gave it all for us. That we should do the same for others. God's way is to pour ourselves out. To offer everything we have and then some. To put other's above ourselves. To actively reach out to those around us in genuine love and mercy. Not to just sit and wait for others to make it all better for us.


I did not make friends easily when I was younger. I struggle with the fear of what others think of me. Of what they are saying behind my back. I always have. And each time I was hurt it made me question the next set of friends. If I perceived that I was not getting what I needed from someone then I thought that something was wrong with the friendship. But I have learned that I was wrong. God calls me to pour into the people around me. Loving well and serving without any expectation or need of my own. When I do that the return is ten fold. The friends I find around me now are numerous. The more I pour out the more my own needs are met.


The older I get the more I realize that the faithful friends that stick it out are not always the ones that I would have picked. They aren't the ones that told me what I wanted to hear or gave me things to meet my physical needs. They are the ones that told me the truth in love. The ones that loved me enough to disagree with me. The ones that said let's pray about it before we try to fix it. The ones who always point me to Jesus.

You use steel to sharpen steel, 

and one friend sharpens another. 

proverbs 27:17