Today the word friend is used to describe an acquaintance, associate, or colleague. On social media platforms one can have millions of individuals they call friend. While we have accepted a diminished meaning of the word, our basic need for a compelling, intimate relationship based on common feelings remains ever-present. Yes, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. However, putrid stench while called a rose, continues to remain void of sweetness.

In the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare penned, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. It was a way to have the character in the play suggest that what something is called is not as important as what it is. However, when so many are deceived by the cavalier counterfeit use of the word friend it is essential to sustain the genuine truth. Returning to the roots of knowing a true friend is vital to living your best life.

We are relational beings, we were created to love and be loved. The only way love is expressed is through relationships. At the heart of our relationships is the ability to have and be a friend. In order to truly embrace, acknowledge and promote love requires an awareness of what is meant by the word friend.

What is your point of reference?

When you think about those that you call friend, what are their attributes and how do they relate to you? Are there people that you refer to as friend that are more correctly associates, colleagues or acquaintances? How do you determine a genuine friend?

Take a few moments and think about what it means to be a friend.

What does a friend look like?

According to Google’s online dictionary a friend is, “a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.”

There are those “so-called friends” that have stabbed us in the back. There have been those that betray our trust. Those who speak ill of us. Those who try to inflict pain upon us and those who have a total disregard for our feelings. Some will spread our intimate personal details like a wildfire in a windstorm. Some will wait for us to stumble and then rejoice.

Have you experienced any of that?

Have you been on the giving end of any of those behaviors?

Be honest with yourself. Taking inventory and taking action is part of loving you. Since neither you nor I are perfect there is room for improvement. We all have sinned. Our Redeemer has covered those sins, yours and mine. Our loving Heavenly Father has made provision for us to live an abundant life.

When we walk in His perfect will we become more like Him.

The Ultimate Friend!

I will share a true story about a man named Joseph. He lived a very long time ago. An Irishman born in 1819. He had just returned from college and with degree in hand became a teacher. Shortly thereafter he met a woman and proposed marriage. They loved each other very much. One day before their planned wedding, moments before he got to his fiancé she drowned and was carried away as he watched.

He was so devastated by this loss that he moved to Canada the following year, 1845. He settled near a place called Port Hope. There he gave to the poor and spread the word about the love of Jesus. He met another young woman and they too planned to marry. About two weeks before they were to wed, she became very ill. Her sickness was unto death. Again he had lost another fiancé, he loved dearly unexpectedly.

Shortly thereafter Joseph got word that his mother was sick and was likely to die very soon. Unable to travel to her bedside because of lack of means he decided to write her a letter of his life story. He included a poem that he wrote for her.

Some years later a friend found the poem that he had written for his mother. Against Joseph’s wishes the poem was passed around to others for encouragement and music was added. It was published and is the song we now know as, What a Friend We Have in Jesus by Joseph Scriven.

Joseph understood the word friend. Do you have a true friend?

Love,

Deborah

“Lighting the path to loving your neighbor as yourself.”