Instead of our relationships getting deeper, growing better friendships and establishing stronger bonds; we live in an age of increasingly shallower relationships that create more frustration than satisfaction, more bondage than liberation and more betrayal than loyalty.
Ever had a friendship suffer, decay or die? Ever had a bad friend?
To say that you have a “bad friend” really means that you don’t have a friend at all. You have a relationship that is probably one-sided and costs one party much more than the other will ever attempt to give. It is often hard to let relationships go. Why? Because, we as human beings were designed to do life in a syncronicity of relationships. Relationships rise and relationships fall. Relationships grow and relationships die. Friendships are much the same. Sometimes, we are much slower to realize what’s really at play with some of the relationships we are fully engaged in. But are they really friendships? Just because you have 300, 500 or 2,000 friends of Facebook, Twitter or any other mode of social media, doesn’t mean even a fraction of these are your true friends. Just because you have 10 or 20 “friends” you can hang out with, etc., doesn’t mean these people are true friends.
The world, this nation, your community and your family all need true and lasting friendships.
The best friendships are mutually beneficial. The best friendships are a collaboration of give-and-give-and-I-can’t-wait-to-give-some-more! The best friendships are not all about the “take” they are about “receive.”
You can “take” a gift from someone and feel nothing but contempt, indifference, arrogance, or justification to the giver. Often, the giver continues to give harder in order to gain approval and acceptance. If you are working to gain either approval or acceptance from a “friend” the relationship is based on a false foundation or bottom. This is why so many relationships hit rock bottom so quickly or so unexpectedly (at least to one of the parties).
Consider the “Bought-Relationship”: The bought relationship is one where submission must first be given, superiority established and dues paid. You can work as hard as you want at the “relationship” and only ever gain frustration. Sometimes, this explains why you may become “friends” in a fraternity or sorority and after college you may never see them (or want to see) ever again. The relationship that is built on continual acceptance is the basis for a foundationless and false friendship. If you understand this then you won’t be disappointed in these types of relationships. Friendships can foster from these environments, but the superior-inferior relationship is not based on freedom and equality. Often, marriages devolve into this kind of pattern where each spouse is keeping track of debts the other one is amassing. Then in one spouse’s mind it gives them an edge of superiority over the other–a recipe for decay.
Among “friendships” there are Takers and Receivers. Since, the core of friendship is love, and love by it’s nature is to be shared/given. Then, the prerequisite for friendship is not necessarily in how well you give, but in your ability to both give and receive. Bad Friends (who aren’t really your friends) are Users and Takers. They use what you have or have access to and are always ready to take more. They are selfish to their core and you merely exist in their life because you represent a conduit of access. A friend is not a friend if they are using your access to improve their existence–this is manipulation.
A True Friend is an Applier and a Receiver. The difference is in the intention. A true friend graciously receives what you give and applies it appropriately. This can be time spent together, a meeting, a conversation, a trust or a physical gift.Deep within a true friend lies the recognition that what is given as a gift is a measure of who the giver is. This is often why true friends give one another really good gifts–they both know how to give and receive in equal measure.
True Friends Have Souls Knit-Together
In the Bible, David and Jonathan are a picture of this type of true friendship. Literally, their friendship is described as their “souls being knit together.” When you connect on this level with another the fabrics of your lives are deeply intertwined and a nearly unbreakable bond is established. Trust and truth abound. Loyalty is inherent in this friendship, because any outside ripping or pulling of the friendship fabric affects both people. If this seems like a little “too deep end” for your friendships, then most likely, your friendships, although, genuine probably hover on very superficial and shallow areas of the relationship. Friends whose souls are knit-together will undergo risk, adveristy and trials for one another. And when the dust clears, the friendship has been strengthened by this kind of adversity.
There is great wisdom on friendship in the Bible, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” Proverbs 17:17. These are true friends, reliable, loving and loyal in adversity. We must aspire and work to be such friends to those in our lives.
What say you?