Good Friends


"When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him." 

The verse above is from the book of Job, and while I agree that being "there" for a friend who is having a difficult time - to sympathize and comfort them is good, the truth is Job's friends actually didn't offer much comfort at all.  Instead, they told him that he must have done something to deserve God's "wrath".

I think I've told you before - years ago if you had asked me how many friends I had, I would have given you a number far greater than the one I'd give you today.  After my divorce, I learned is that a lot of people I used to think of as friends were actually more interested in the food and wine I used to serve them, than they were in standing by me when things got difficult.

But that is the mark of a true friend.  It is someone you could call up at any time of the night, who would drop everything to have your back.  Someone who would give you the shirt off their back, or the food off their table.  Finally it's someone who recognizes your flaws - but loves you in spite of them.

Mark 2 tells another story about friendship.  In the story Jesus is preaching at a house in Capernaum.  A group of friends had heard He was there, and knew that Jesus had been performing miracles, so they brought their paralyzed friend to the house, with the hopes that he might be healed.  But when they got there they found:

"They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them...Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on." - Mark 2:2, 4

Now THOSE are some friends!  How many people in your life who would stop at nothing to get you the help you needed?

That's the kind of friend I want.  That's the kind of friend I want to be.



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