Friendships Part I

It has been a while since I have posted. No excuse, but, things have been pretty crazy around here lately. I have been pondering on friendships for quite some time now and feel the urge to share some of my thoughts with you. I am in no way an expert on relationships, but, having gone through some tough times does put me in a position to speak candidly about how we as women sabotage some of the best things God created for us.

Before I embark on this series ( I am not sure how many it will be) I wanted to share my story with you and how friendships became such a passion to me. Shortly after the birth of my son I lost a dear friend to...I am not quite sure what. There never was a real reason why my friend abandoned our friendship or treated me so cold. I prayed, I searched my heart, wracked my brain trying to figure out what it was that I did to make this person hate me so much. I always came up with nothing. I made a couple of attempts to reconnect and restore the relationship with her the Biblical way only to have my feelings hurt again and again. She admitted that even she, herself, really didn't know the reason why she chose to not be my friend anymore. The sad thing about this broken friendship is that it also hurt other connecting friendships. So, for the past two years I have been allowing God to heal me from this friendship that was severed in a malicious way. It has not been an easy road, and it definitely has been slow...I mean like 5mph slow. Some days I still feel bumps in the road. But, the result of it has been eye and heart opening on how I never want Satan to infiltrate my friendships anymore. I do believe that Satan does not want us to have and maintain friendships with others. It is through those relationships that we can grow, love, edify, fellowship, and glorify. Where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the middle of it! No wonder the devil does not want us to have friends! So, let's begin on how to arm ourselves and shield ourselves from this spiritual on our earthly relationships.

First, lets define friendship. Webster's Dictionary defines friendship as 1. the state of being a friend 2. the quality or state of being friendly. What does the word friendship mean to you? How do you maintain the state of being a friend or being friendly? Notice that the definition of friendship does not necessitate both parties to participate. The state of being a friend, the act of being friendly, does not require reciprocating. And here is where we as humans mess up. We think that friendship must be reciprocated..simply not true. We do not understand that the definition of friendship is SOLO.

So how do we take on the "state" of being a friend or being friendly? Proverbs 18:24 tells us that "a man who has friends must show himself friendly." Now I know that everyone views friendliness differently. But let's look at what the Bible views friendliness as. First, Acceptance - Romans 15:7 "Therefore accept one another just as Christ has also accepted you..and give one another a friendly reception as Christ has received you, thus promoting the Glory of God". Second, Unity - Romans 12:16 "Live in harmony with each other. Don't be arrogant, but be friendly to humble people. Don't think that you are smarter than you really are." Third, Love, John 15:12 "This is my commandment that you Love one another even as I have loved you" Here it is folks the basis of everything..LOVE. God specifically tells us to love others as He loved us. This is the root of all friendships..even when we don't feel loved back. If we truly viewed(acceptance and unity) everyone the way God sees us we would love them and be motivated out of that love to put it into action. And putting love to action is the state of being friendly and being a friend.

I feel I could go on and on on this topic, but God is showing me things in bits and pieces. I have been given a desire by God to figure out why are we so terrible at creating and maintaining friendships when, God specifically wants us to embrace others as friends? Why as women, do we sabotage other women with our cat-like tendencies? How can we break the cycle? Hang on, more will be revealed. Part II to follow.