A Friend

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17 ESV)

I had a conversation recently with a friend where I apologised for having been a bad friend. Basically, I was sharing some personal struggles and failures with him not because I wanted the support of a friend, but because I figured he wouldn’t give me pushback or challenge. He would sit and listen without calling me to account and pushing me towards greater obedience and maturity, and I could still tell myself I was walking in the light because I shared with someone. Pretty lousy of me.

As I write, my wife is on a call with one of her best friends back in America. Perhaps because I am preparing to write a devotional about friendship, I felt nudged by the Spirit to, if it fits organically into their conversation, to apologise to my wife’s friend for some recent stupendous failures on my part to intentionally hold in prayer her marriage to our other good friend.

Another person who I have always called a friend just lost his wife quite young. We were on the field together for a short season before the Lord relocated them two hours away, but in the same country. I haven’t actually spoken with him much since they moved from our local area like nine years ago. Can I really say I have been a friend if I haven’t actually made much of an effort to maintain that friendship after distance made it inconvenient?

What does it actually mean to be a friend? Maybe I am not as good at it as I thought. Maybe my self-absorption is more damaging than I have been willing to admit. What is the net result of my missed opportunities to act in friendship towards someone I thought in my pride I was being a friend to? Have I been more of a consumer of people than I realised? What does repentance from being a self-serving friend look like? 

In the midst of all the self-examination, thankfully I haven’t lost sight of the fact that, no matter how I have failed as a friend to people, Jesus has not failed as a friend to me. I wonder if he chuckled to himself as he repeated his opponents’ accusation that he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Being that friend was precisely why he came, and now, more than that, he’s not ashamed to call me his brother.

Fred Swartz

For Reflection

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Matthew 11:19; ESV)

• How has Jesus demonstrated friendship to you?

• Consider one or two specific people and ask how Jesus can be their friend through you?