Friends

The sitcom “Cheers” aired 1982-1993 and centered around a local bar where people gathered to drink, talk, relax, and generally have fun. The theme song lyrics captured the essence of what many hope to find today. The 1^st verse says, “Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.  Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.  You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same, you wanna be where everybody knows your name. You wanna go where people know, people are all the same. You wanna go where everybody knows your name.”

Today I spent a little time pondering the question “What are the marks of true friendship”? What are the things we hope to find in those we call “friend”?

1.      A true friend helps you when you are down – Our world loves to kick people when they are down but a friend helps them up or as a minimum stays with them while they are down. If you want to know if a friendship is “true”, get in some trouble and if the person stays by your side they are indeed a friend.

2.      A true friend fights to protect your reputation – Our “put down” society loves to have “dirt” on someone else. In churches we tend to share “dirt” in the form of “prayer requests”. A good standard to use in sharing information is: Is it true? Is it fair? Is it necessary? Unless the answer to all three is undoubtedly “yes” … don’t share it.

3.      A true friend is committed to helping you grow spiritually – Proverbs 27:17 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” They will pray for you and hold you accountable to grow in your Christ-likeness.

Keith Miller wrote book The Edge of Adventure: “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His church.  It’s an imitation dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive accepting and inclusive fellowship.  It is unshockable.  It is democratic.  You can tell people secrets and they usually don’t tell others or even want to.  The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.”

Read that last sentence again. “The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.” Let’s resolve to be a friend that desires to know and opens up so others may know them; a friend who loves and desires to be loved. The world is filled with “friends” that cause people to say “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” May that not be said of us!