Friends

Earlier in my life, I was too busy to have friends.  While I had some people in my life I thought of as friends, it was mostly a ploy in my mind to make me feel better.  The truth is friendships take effort.  They require putting self aside at times in order to be a friend.  They can sometimes get in the way of the scheduled things we regard as truly important. Friendships are not always cultivated within the land of convenience.   

Many of the ones I called friends were really acquaintances and colleagues. True friends come more in the category of the few instead of the category of the many.  A regret is that I let myself be so occupied with myself and my pursuits that I had no time for the work of being a friend.  I was reminded of the importance of friends this evening as I shared a meal with a friend from my college years. While the years since those first years of friendship took us in different directions, it is good to reconnect and to claim once again a life sustaining relationship.  I am grateful for this man who was a boy when our friendship took roots.  

The evening brought to mind One who has called me friend.  He is known by many of us.  John 15:15-16 enables us to hear Jesus saying to those He loves and who love Him, "I do not call you servants any longer,...but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."   Transparency and risk and sacrifice are ingredients of friendships.  It is never enough just to talk about being a friend.  It is imperative expressions of care and love come forth from our hearts.  Jesus certainly modeled that for us to see as He journeyed from the waters of baptism to the cross on the hill.  One thing is certain.  The bar of friendship is raised to a new level when He chose to call us friends.