What is a friend

Having been a member of the Facebook fraternity for several months now, I have come to a few conclusions about social networking. For example, I never cease to be amazed at what apparently educated, sane people will write for all the world to see.

Secondly, I am fascinated by the whole Friend idea, especially when a person you do not know but who may be a friend of one of your friends, requests to be your friend too. I can read the request and possibly even go to their profile, then can either add the person as a friend or press the ‘Not Now’ button, after which I can fully delete the request if I want to or keep them in a file for later consideration. Conversely, I can ask someone to be my friend and they go through the same process at their end.

Is it just me, or does this seem weird to you too? And, by the way, if one of my friends says something I don’t like or if I simply become tired of what he or she is putting on Facebook, I can unfriend them – all with the click of a button.

Such cyber friendship may be quick and easy; it may give us virtually unlimited friends, many of whom we don’t know and it may open up possibilities to connect with the world and even vent our feelings from time to time. BUT, is it really friendship?

A little boy named Brian says that a friend is a person who cares about you. He would let you borrow stuff, and wouldn't say mean things. He would be by your side and would not let you down. This, among the many definitions we could read, gives us a good example if what friendship is really all about. To me, this definition from a little boy says that friendship is up close and personal, something you can ‘reach out and touch’. It also gives me a window into what God Himself is trying to show a world that is finding it more and more difficult to connect in real friendship.

God cares about you – indeed, He cares about everyone. God lets you borrow stuff from Him while we are on earth; grace, healing, peace and much more. I say borrow because once we are with Him in heaven all we had in our life on earth will be in the past and we will no longer need it.

He doesn’t say mean things and He is by your side (excuse the slight deviation from truth of Him being IN me) every moment of the day in the person of the Holy Spirit. Finally, but most important, He would not (and never will) let you down.

While I have learned to enjoy Facebook in some of its more positive aspects, I still like Brian’s idea of friendship. It may take more effort but it will also pay better dividends, especially a friendship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. That friendship pays eternal dividends.

By the way, once you are a friend of God, He doesn’t click the unfriend button, even if you muck up. Now, that’s a friend!.

Don & Julie
With you on the journe