April 22

Friends for Life

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  ––John 15:13-15

Our oldest friends … the kid next door, our buddy in first grade, or the one guy on the block who had a pool with a diving board. When you are 10, those things are the glue of friendship. As you enter your teens, you develop a different set of friends, maybe with some overlap. By high school, friendships tend to share common interests like sports, cars, video games/hobbies, music, and girls.

I have friends now that date back to early childhood, and to be honest, I don’t have much in common with some of them. But they will always be my friends because they were there the day we almost burned down the neighbor’s palm tree or got busted sneaking into the movie theatre to see Star Wars. It’s like the memories are now the glue.

Once we come of age and leave home, it gets harder to both make and hold on to friendships. As God’s men, our friendships tend to shift from hobbies and common interests to life experiences and spiritual beliefs. I have friends from college who are still close, but mostly because we share a belief in Jesus and have been intentional about staying connected.

The older you get, the more you appreciate your friendships and the more you have to work hard to keep them strong. Don’t take your friends for granted, especially when pressures like job, kids, and bills begin to crowd in. God designed us to have other male friends and provided examples, including David and Jonathan, Daniel and his friends (Ananias, Azarias, and Misael), Jesus and Peter, James and John, and many others.

As God’s man, the Lord will bring certain men into your life at different times for different reasons. I’ve had friends for a season who played a significant role in my spiritual growth, but with whom I have little contact now. And that’s okay; not all friendships last a lifetime. I’ve also had men come into my life at critical times to support and mentor me, and vice versa. We may have only known each other for a year or two, but I will be forever grateful for the roles they played.

Welsh poet Joseph Parry (1841-1903) penned these famous words: “Make new friends, but keep the old; those are silver, these are gold.” Whether your friendships are decades old or just a few months, take a moment to thank God for your friends. He is the Creator and we are the created, and we were made to worship Him with others. Do you have some friends you haven’t talked to in a long time—maybe too long? Give them a call or shoot them a text to let them know how much you appreciate them. You will make their day—and yours.

Father, thank You for my friends, both old and new. Help me treasure my relationships for what they are: gifts from You.