True Friends
A reading for Wednesday, October 21, 2015: 1 Samuel 18:1-4.
Friendship is one of the greatest blessings in life. True friends are rare, nothing like the number that shows up on our Facebook page. Simon Sinek, the writer and lecturer, has said that each of us only has the capacity for just over 100 real relationships. When we count up our family, those we work with or go to school with, there aren't a lot of slots left. Most of us don't have a lot of true friends.
David and Jonathan were true friends. Sometimes scholars have wondered if their relationship was something more than a friendship. However, I think that's a reflection of how rare true friendships are in our age, especially among men. To be bound to David in a way in which Jonathan "loved him as his own soul" is too intimate for some to imagine. Yet, would we not all pray for someone who looked after us in the very same way they looked after themselves? David and Jonathan were friends in the truest sense of that word.
If you have a friend like that, then I would encourage you to give thanks to God. Remember the ending of the holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life! Clarence the angel leaves George a note that says... "Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends." Indeed!
Friendship is one of the greatest blessings in life. True friends are rare, nothing like the number that shows up on our Facebook page. Simon Sinek, the writer and lecturer, has said that each of us only has the capacity for just over 100 real relationships. When we count up our family, those we work with or go to school with, there aren't a lot of slots left. Most of us don't have a lot of true friends.
David and Jonathan were true friends. Sometimes scholars have wondered if their relationship was something more than a friendship. However, I think that's a reflection of how rare true friendships are in our age, especially among men. To be bound to David in a way in which Jonathan "loved him as his own soul" is too intimate for some to imagine. Yet, would we not all pray for someone who looked after us in the very same way they looked after themselves? David and Jonathan were friends in the truest sense of that word.
If you have a friend like that, then I would encourage you to give thanks to God. Remember the ending of the holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life! Clarence the angel leaves George a note that says... "Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends." Indeed!
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