To Be Still and Know...How We Treat Others Matters. Pt 2

"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...A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can conquer.  Three are even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken."  Ecclesiastes 4:9,10 & 12

We were never meant to live life alone and isolated.  God created us, first to be have a relationship with Him, and second to be in fellowship with one another.  Today I want to focus on the importance of friendship in our life.  The next post will focus on our role as wife and how we treat our husbands.

There are three types of friendships.  Acquaintances, people who we know and have quick hellos and pleasantries with when we see them in public.  Casual friends who we may go to church or the gym with or to work lunches, or playgroups, but that's the extent of the friendship.  And finally close friends.  Those people who we share our life with. Good close friends, the kind that will stick by you through thick and thin, the good and the bad and love you at your best and worst, are hard to find, but when you do find them hold on to them and cherish them.  And even more importantly, be that kind of friend! "There are 'friends' who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24  What does being a true friend look like according to God's Word?  Well first we can understand from the above verses that God wants us to help each other.  A good friendship is one where both people are giving and taking.  Each person in the friendship will have times of need and it is important that when one friend is "weak" the other can reach out and help them be strong.  It should not be where one person in the friendship is always doing the helping and giving.  This also means that to be a good friend, we have to allow our friends to be real with us and share with us those parts of themselves that aren't so pretty.  Our friends should feel free to share their burdens and struggles with us knowing that they are unconditionally loved.  There is something about sharing your soul with someone and even if they can't relate, they show you an outpouring of love and care that is simply therapeutic for the soul. Late last summer a friend and I decided to start walking with one another once a week.  These walks have led to some of the most amazing conversations of pouring out our hearts to one another, laughing til we can't see straight t, and sharing prayers and praises from our lives.  These special times have also bonded me to this friend in ways I have never felt so bonded to another friend.  I know I can share anything and everything with her and she knows she can do the same with me. I have another friendship that came after years of knowing each other but never connecting.  This friend and I went to school together from 6th grade on up through graduation.  We just never connected then but God caused our paths to cross again a few years ago after we had given birth around the same time, she with her first and me with my 3rd.  I felt God telling me to email her and ask her to lunch.  I felt so silly as it had been over a decade since I had last seen her.  I obeyed God though and I am so thankful I did!  She is one of my dearest friends now and is another friend that I know I can share anything with and she with me.  It's also precious to see our kids who are now 2, play together and talk about each other with toddler like fondness!  I could go on and on about each special friend God has blessed me with but I will digress.  (Just know sweet friends if you are reading this, you mean the world to me and I cherish you and our friendship!)  

"As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend." Proverbs 27:17

There will be times in a friendship, especially a close friendship, where you may have to share a hard truth in love.  If  you are close enough in a friendship and you see that friend making some choices that are leading them down a bad path you may have to speak up and point this out to them in a loving manner.  You do this because you love them and don't want to see them doing something that will hurt them or others.  I have been there, both on the receiving and the giving end of that kind of tough love.  While it may be hard to accept and/or deliver, it is a necessary part of a good solid friendship.  We need Godly Christian friends in our lives who will help us stay close to the Lord, who will sharpen us and us them.

Something we need to be very careful about in our friendships is gossip.  "A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends." Proverbs 16:28

Gossip is such a nasty thing and we have all done it.  Women are emotional beings and we let our feelings dictate what comes out of our mouths.  If we are offended we want the world to know.  I am not sure why, but we crave to "be in the know".  We want to know the juicy details and whether we want to admit it or not we are drawn to drama.  Have you ever played that childhood game of "telephone"?  It's a game where there is a group of people and one person whispers something in someone else's ear and then that person whispers the same thing into the next persons ear and on down the line until it comes to the end and the last person says whatever they heard out loud.  Usually what the last person hears has been changed from what was originally said.  That's how gossip can work.  If we are sharing someone elses business it gets misconstrued and the facts get messed up and it may not be what happened at all.  And even if what we are sharing is absolutely true, it's not for us to share unless it is about ourselves.  We should make a practice of not sharing other peoples business and not talking badly about someone else.  Not only should we put into practice not speaking badly of another person, we should also practice not even listening to gossip.  Listening to it plants seeds in your own heart that may cause you to think of someone in a bad way.  I like the old advice "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  I think our world would be a lot quieter if people lived by that rule, or at least until they learned how to speak only things that were kind and uplifting.  

Lastly I want to leave you with a passage we have all heard many many times.  (I will be using it in the next post as well)  This is what God tells us love really looks like.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 & 13

"Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful

or proud or rude.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance... Three things will last forever- faith, hope and love- and the greatest of these is love."