So this week I have been thinking and feeling…a lot. I guess it more started off with me feeling kind of crummy and led to me thinking to identify why I felt that way. Long story short I was led to think about what it really means to be a friend. So in my pondering I decided to look up some bible verses about friendship, and this is what I stumbled across:

“A friend loves at all times” —Proverbs 17:17

One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace 
   will have the king for a friend. —Proverbs 22:11

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.—John 15:13

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. —1 John 4:11

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.    —Matthew 7:12

And since so much friendship is about love, of course I have to reference the love chapter

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. —1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I think a lot of times we can be guilty of idolizing our friends. Using friends to get our needs met and our affirmation, when the Lord is really the only one who can provide that for us. Just like in a dating relationship, we shouldn’t be seeking for friends to make us feel good about ourselves, but out of overflow of love from the father we should be giving love to our friends. We shouldn’t have expectations and demands for a friend, but should be seeking how we can reach out to them. Of course we all want to feel loved and appreciated, but if we did a little more loving and appreciating, I think we’d find it comes right back to us.

A certain kind of messy friendship I’ve learned about is a guy-girl friendship. I know it is something I’ve made a lot of mistakes with and God has taught me a lot about. Especially when the guy has liked me, I’ve found saying “We’re just friends” was usually my excuse to use him for the attention he gave me. I’m not sure how you define friend but I’m pretty sure texting him, flirting with him, and hanging out with him with no intention of ever dating him, even though I knew he liked me, was the opposite of friendship. Unless you consider friendship using someone to get the validity you haven’t been letting the Lord give you. Biblically speaking it was not kind, it was not how I would have wanted to be treated, and I was not showing him God’s love. However it was pretty rude, proud, and self-seeking. 

I still struggle with wanting to use friends to feel good about myself and sometimes seek my identity, but the Lord is very good about forgiving me and speaking His love into me. And with His love I’m able to love others in a Christ like way.