It might not seem that the Bible would be a good source of advice about friendship, but it actually has a lot to say about it. One powerful passage about friendship is from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, which says:
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
To prepare for this lesson, I looked up some stats on friendship and it seems like the consensus is that most people 3-5 true friends. As you probably already know, there is a difference between an acquaintance and a true friend. Here are some questions to determine if someone is a true friend. Do they:
- Accept you for who you are?
- Stick around in good times and bad?
- Celebrate your victories with you?
- Make time for you and are truly present when you are together?
- Encourage you to be your best?
- Tell you the truth, even if you don’t like it?
- Make you feel good when you are with them?
Even if you are fortunate enough to find even a few people who check all of those boxes, friendships can still sometimes be challenging and frustrating. But, in a way, that’s what friendships are for.
God wants us to have close friends AND He wants us to have the opportunity to grow and strengthen those friendships. If we never faced challenges in our friendships, how could we have the opportunity to deepen those relationships?
Using a sports analogy to emphasize this point, what if you were an athlete but never had the opportunity to compete against other athletes? What would be your motivation to practice and try to get better? In the same way, when we have true friends, it encourages us to work hard on those friendships, even if they become challenging and frustrating. We want to work harder to protect these relationships and, in working harder, we become better people. Our rough edges are smoothed and we become more patient & kind.
When you face challenges in relationships, consider where God may be moving and don’t necessarily assume that friendship is strained beyond repair. He might just be providing an opportunity to strengthen that relationship and take it to the next level.
Questions:
- Do you agree that it is difficult to have more than five true friends?
- Why do you think God wants us to have true friends in our lives?
- Do you agree that when we encounter challenges in our closest relationships, it might be a good thing? Why or why not?
- Do you have any examples where you or someone else you know worked on repairing a strained friendship and it turned out that friendship became much deeper?
- What are one or two things we can do this week to either deepen a good friendship or start repairing a strained friendship?
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