The questions were intriguing and the answers were as one would imagine. A friend is someone who is always there for you through thick and thin, no matter what . . . forever! A friend always has your back. A friend is someone you can always count on. A friend accepts you just as you are. A friend is someone who will tell you the truth about yourself. And so on. You get the idea.
We then discussed what friendship looked like with a best friend before we turned 20. Then we were asked, given the answers that we came up with, how many friends do we have now that fit all of the criteria, all the time. Big. Long. Pause!!
As wonderful and as dedicated as I know my friends to be, I know that not one truly fits all the criteria all the time. Not my human friends. When asked the question, I said I had one Friend. There is only One who would fit our criteria and His definition of friendship is far superior to ours. His friendship is based solely on love and we have a clear definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
We talked about the difference between friends and family. We get to choose our friends but not our family. We choose our friends and my One true Friend chose me. I did not choose Him. He loves me unconditionally. I cannot love Him as He loves me without the help of His Holy Spirit within me. I am too prone to evil. I am too prone to selfishness. I am too prone to my own self-centeredness. Even in the very best and most selfless situation, my effort to love Him as He loves me falls infinitesimally short. There is no comparison. To even begin to think of it is laughable. And yet, He chose me.
He commands me to love others as He loves me. If I follow His commands then I am His friend. Again, my efforts fall infinitesimally short. I’ve even gotten to the point of saying “STOP” out loud when I think an unkind or critical thought about anyone. But the thought was thunk! I can’t unthink it. I didn’t do it on purpose, but the deed was done. The sin was committed.
My natural man is like a zombie. Daily I die to self, or at least I make the attempt. I’m not awake an hour, sometimes not even ten minutes before my natural man rises up again, impatient, selfish, complaining, rude, critical, prideful, ticked off, recounting past injustices, lying, throwing people under the bus, resigned, throwing in the towel, and the list goes on. All before my morning cup of coffee! Sometimes it seems like I spend most of the day dieing, over and over and over again!
Despite all that, there is One who accepts me, just as I am, who loves me because He chooses to love me and who teaches me how to love Him back. He appreciates my feeble efforts because even my most heroic, grand efforts are . . . well, not worth mentioning to be perfectly honest.
I believe that most of my friends would say that I’m a good friend, some would say a great friend even. I’m grateful for their kind thoughts toward me. I know the truth though. I have an amazing Teacher and I know that I have a very long way to go before I can even hope to consider myself a true friend in the order of The One True Friend. However, He is a kind and patient Teacher and I will continue to study about and practice being the friend that He is teaching me to be. With His blessing, someday, my horrid zombie self, will lie down and stay dead.