I read a post yesterday about friendship.
Actually about what real friendship is not and what pseudo friendship is. The type of friendship that is only there when the winds are favourable and make a person look good – not the kind which stands with a person no matter the weather. It was a difficult article to read in some ways and there were moments when I rolled my eyes and laughed, recognising some of what was written.
I don’t know how others respond to things like this but at this stage of life I take them as a challenge. Maybe that’s because I am finally learning about wisdom. Maybe! However, some of my night was spent tossing and turning, wrestling with the issues that swirl about friendship and love, and all the rules I seem to have for it that suddenly come to light when a written word becomes a mirror.
There is so much said these days about ‘relationships’ and ‘friendships’. And the word ‘boundaries’ has – in some cases – become an excuse to go so far and no further. Boundaries bring protection, but in many cases they give us an acceptable excuse not to love because really we are afraid.
I think about these things because of my own weakness in this area. Like many others, I have failed miserably at times in the working out of what love and what friendship is. In my mind, these two things go together. I have experienced the pain of realising that actually people do not want to know me or to be seen as a part of my life and sadly, people have also felt that from me. This is an area I am constantly asking God to help me with. I understand that I cannot have ‘best friend status’ with everyone – but what yesterday’s post challenged me on was my willingness to ‘stick’ with people through thick and thin. Through what I like and what I don’t like. Through situations that are not comfortable for me, but that when I look at the life of Christ I see Him having no difficulty in these areas at all. I am talking about friendship not based on issues but rather relationships that actually have love as the core.
That is costly. And only possible if I choose to stay in the love of God and love others as I have been loved by Him. From what I understand about the working out of my faith, I need to come to the point where I am able to walk in the ‘no greater love’ scenario and that is a bigger stretch than I can even imagine. To lay down my life so that the life and dreams of another can live. To be able to lay down my opinions and even ‘being right’ about things. To listen instead of always having an answer. To push past popular opinion and actually act like Jesus. No, not just act, BE like Jesus. To say that I am doing that or find it easy would not be the whole truth. To say I am setting my heart on this would be right.
There came a point in the life of Jesus where He called His disciples friends and He explained to them how friendship worked. In my thoughts, the standard set there has never changed and it is my job to line myself up with these guidelines and not make new rules according to my life experience – although that would be far simpler in many cases! Friends stick together. Friendship is inclusive at all times, never exclusive…and does not punish with exclusion when our rules for the journey are violated. Not if we learn to be friends in the way that Christ has set out for us. Not if we learn what love is and how love is the key to what friendship is supposed to be all about. (emphasis mine)
The wonderful thing about walking with God is that we get to try again, and again and again and again. And because He never gives up on us and His love never ends or fails – change is possible!
My part in the whole cycle is to line myself up with His standards and begin to grow up by letting go of my own. We are supposed to be known by our love, after all.
