I Am With You When You Are All Alone Series

I want to start out by reading an anonymous poem called “Friendship”:

Friendship is a priceless gift that cannot be bought or sold

But its value is far greater than a mountain of gold

For gold is cold and lifeless

It can neither see nor hear

And in times of trouble it is powerless to cheer

It has no ears to listen

No heart to understand

It cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand

So when you feel down and need a lift

One of the best things to do to make amends isn’t diamonds,

pearls, or riches …

But the of love of real true friends.

Amen … that’s nice isn’t it? Here’s a rendition on friendship that might be a bit more familiar to you:

Thank you for being a friend

Traveled down the road and back again

Your heart is true

You’re a friend and a confidant

And if you threw a party

Invited everyone you knew

You would see, the biggest gift would be from me

And the care attached would say …

[Encourage people to sing …]

Thank you for being a friend.

Amen! Of course, most, if not all of you recognize that as the theme song from “The Golden Girls.”

The ancient Greeks had four different words for love. Wouldn’t it be great if we had four different words to describe friendship? Geoffrey Greif did exactly that in his book “Buddy System” (2008; Oxford University Press.).

First … there are “contact” friends … or what he calls “just” friends. These are people that you see around … the people that you see or come into contact with on a somewhat regular basis … a neighbor or someone you bump into at your child’s school activities … maybe someone you see or sit near at church on Sunday. You enjoy their company, but you have no desire to socialize with them outside of certain contexts.

The next level of friend is the “casual” friend … or what Greif calls a “rust” friend. This is a person, or persons, whom you’ve known for a long time. You share common interests but you are probably not going to get any closer to that person unless something changes.

Greif calls third level friends “close” friends or a “trust” friends. A “trust” friend is someone who shows integrity … someone you feel comfortable to be with … someone that you’re always glad to see. They are someone you’d like to get closer to if you had the time or opportunity.

Got it so far?

We have “just” friends … “rust” friends … “trust” friends and the, the fourth level of friend is “must” friends. These are the friends who make up your inner circle … your committed friends. This is someone you can count on when something big happens in your life … someone who supports you and sticks with you through thick and thin. This is a person who knows you … someone you trust enough to confront you when you’re doing something wrong … someone who points you in the right direction when you get off track. They are a rare commodity in life and you are blessed if you have one or two committed “must” friends in your life … amen?

How do you know which of your friends are “just” friends, “rust” friends, “trust” friends, or “must” friends? How do you know if your friend is a contact friend, a casual friend, a close friend, or a committed friend? Ask them to help you move, amen? I heard a comedian once say that he had 300 friends on Facebook … how many do you think showed up when he asked them to help him move?

Well … as the Apostle Paul found out … let a disaster tear your life apart and you’ll figure out who your real friends are pretty quick, amen? When you read Paul’s letters in the New Testament it quickly becomes apparent that Paul was a man with many friends. At the end of Paul’s epistle … or letter … to the Church in Rome, for example, Paul mentions 34 people by name.

We get a rare and insightful look into the heart and soul of Paul in one of his most personal letters. His two letters … 1st and 2nd Timothy … were written to a dear friend of his who was a young man … by the name of Timothy … who was just starting out on his career as a pastor of a church or the church in the city Ephesus. In 2nd Timothy … known as Paul’s “last will and testament” … the Apostle Paul pours out what’s in his heart … his pain, his anguish, his fear … to his friend and pupil Timothy … whom he calls his “beloved child” (2nd Timothy 1:2).