Friend

What is a real friend?  A friend is someone that is more than an acquaintance, it is someone you can count on and confide in.  A true friend sticks by you through the good and bad times and will stick closer than a brother.  Friends look for the best in you and try to bring those things out in the open.  Real friends don‘t embarrass you in front of others and they don’t just use you or try to take advantage of you.  True friends don’t lie or talk bad about you behind your back, if you have one or two real friends in a lifetime you are very blessed.  I think in my lifetime I have only had a very few true friends, one is the Lord, the others are my wife and family and another is a man named Dan but he doesn’t live around here.  

Over the years I have had many acquaintances that claimed to be friends that would drink the booze I bought or smoke my cigarettes or eat my food or whatever else that would benefit them and their needs at the time.  I have heard many people say over the years they loved me or I was their best friend whether it was in or out of the church, but if I said something they didn’t like or agree with it was like they never knew me.  To me that is not a friend and it is not love, it is just being a phony and also hypocritical.  This sounds like I am angry and bitter but I’m not, I have chosen to forgive everyone that has offended me or my family in any way. I am just telling the truth.

I have heard over the years that if you want a friend you have to be a friend, that sounds good but it takes more than one person to make that happen and believe me I have gone out of my way many times to make friends but to no avail, I guess it’s my fault, I think I am the most misunderstood person I know.  Oh well, life goes on and I don’t plan on giving up, praise the Lord!!

The reason I wrote this tidbit was because on Facebook the other day people were “redoing” their friends list.  The thing that struck me was this, if the people were your friends in the first place why wouldn’t they still be your friends, I know that there are many people that are on different friend’s lists that are just acquaintances and not real friends but it seems to me if someone had any real friends they would still have them or they weren’t true friends in the first place.  

Friends love like Jesus said in Luke 10:27, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself.”  Jesus also said, “Go and do thou likewise,” in verse 37.  

Jesus is saying that we need to love everyone, but not the people on Facebook.  No, Jesus said to love everyone and to even pray for your enemies, WOW, that’s different, Jesus did you really mean that or were you just kidding?  Jesus meant it, then why do so many in the church talk so much about love and demonstrate it so little?  Whether we consider everyone on Facebook real close friends or just acquaintances we need to love and respect them.  We don’t have to agree with them, we can agree to disagree but still love and respect them, pray for them and at times encourage them no matter what their views are.  

My choice is to befriend everyone on my Facebook account and even though I may hide or even delete some of the comments it doesn’t mean I have written the person off.  If I decide to take a person off my Facebook account it doesn’t mean I don’t care for the person.  It may be that the person’s remarks or what they posted are very offensive and I am not trying to offend the other people on my account.  I consider everyone on my Facebook account to be somewhat of a friend, maybe not a real close friend but I pray for them, not all individually, but like a pastor when he prays for the congregation.  I try to encourage them with the different comments I type on Facebook and also with my blog I do five or six times a week.  

I want each one to be blessed and pray that the Lord will prosper them and give them a hope and a future, but that will only happen if each one has a relationship with the Lord.  When I say ‘prosper’ them I don’t just mean financially but also with peace, love, joy, health, happiness and with at least one true friend.  Well, I got my two cents in, thanks for putting up with me!  God bless you and have a great day!