At All Times.

Does anyone else want to smack their kids upside their heads when you hear them say "Well you're not my friend anymore!" to their contemporaries? Right . . . me neither . . .

I've been thinking about those few little words a lot lately. As grown ups - we can't say that anymore and still call ourselves grown ups. But we think it and feel it. So the friendship issue can apply to all of us - not just the kids.

The first thing I think of when I think of the word friendship is usually one of two sayings - both from rather wise people. The first is from my mom. "If you want to have a friend, be a friend." I'm sure she didn't make it up but she's the one who first said it to me when I was about middle school age and I'd cry and cry for want of a "best friend." And she's said it many times after that as well. It's what I think of every time it comes to mind that I like someone and really want to be friends with them. I can't just sit on my butt and wait for them to come be my bosom buddy. I actually need to be a friend to get one. Guess what - it works. The other thing I think of is by Solomon: "A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17:17. It was one of my very first memory verses as a child and has provoked lots of thought about it's deeper complex meaning through the years. Not really - it's pretty straight forward.


What's striking is that in both pieces of advice it's about what I need to do - not about what someone else needs to do to earn my friendship. It doesn't say: here's how to make someone like you and love you all the time, rather it says what I need to do to be a friend. I have no control over someone's response to me being a friend and loving them at all times - I just need to worry about myself - as I'm always telling Corrie.

So I had a smallish discussion with Corrie about this the other day - after I heard her yell the "You're not my friend anymore!"business at a "friend." I let her know that, first of all, it doesn't matter if they were BEING her friend or not - she can only control if she's being a friend or not. And, second of all, I let her know that she wasn't being a friend to start with if she felt the need to say that. If you can turn on and off your affections then you're not loving at all times and you don't get to label yourself as a "friend." After that she asked if she could have Ramen Noodles and I asked her if she heard what I was saying and then she said yes and then I sent her to bed . . . anyway.

Here's the Jesus part. He loves at all times. He doesn't turn his affections for us on and off based on if we're being jerks. We're supposed to be like him. Abraham was a friend of God. Perhaps it's a bit simpler than we thought it was. Perhaps Abraham loved God at all times and that's what made him a friend. God is with us through fair or foul weather - why shouldn't we do the same? We can only control ourselves.