Sunday, February 12, 2012

Who's a Good Friend?

"Show me who your friends are, and I'll show you who you are." This quote has long been credited to my late grandfather, and I have gleaned from its wisdom for years. I have done what I can to evaluate my friends from a neutral perspective to learn more about myself. I think it is very difficult to look at yourself honestly, so I have used this system for a shortcut.

If I've had all friends who are wired for just sports, I've determined that I care too much about sports, and I need to pull back. If I have friends who I find laborious to converse with, I figure I need to adjust that. Perhaps I have looked to change myself too much, but the reality is that I think my grandfather's wisdom has been an easier way than most to evaluate my life.

Further, a young man I was advising was given the advice by me to choose his friends more carefully, as people (and me) would think he was too vulgar, like his current friends. Turned out that his fine tuning of friends led to his elimination of me as a friend, and his life has fallen in the same manner as his friends. So, I feel like these words of wisdom are proven on many fronts.

Now, other than give props to my grandfather, you say I must have another reason to address this. And I guess it all started when I was giving my personal opinion of someone to my parents. I began by saying that the fact that he had no friends really told me something.

Within two days, I was counseling someone else who was wondering why they could not become friends with someone. And, I looked to the volume of that person's friends. I saw it as non-existent. While not the direct point my grandfather was making, I believe it is clear that someone with too few friends, really just is exposing himself as a generally bad friend.

My study of Proverbs 18 shows me how to be wise in acquiring friends. It culminated at the end with "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly." Someone with no friends just is not friendly. And that is not the model we are given for friendship, but rather, the close of that verse reads, "and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." (If you want to see some of my thoughts on this, click here).

So, my newest facet to look at is to see how many friends I have. I don't think it's a contest, but I can tell a lot about a person by the number of friends they keep. Someone who has no friends is doing something wrong. I have previously been someone to not keep friends. But I am determined that so far as it depends upon me, I will do my best to be a good friend to everyone I meet and befriend. I will do my best to be someone who is a worthy friend!

1 comment:

  1. ...and your Facebook list suggests that you are doing just fine. :-)

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