Friends: Risks and Rewards
Five years from today you will be pretty much the same as you are today except for two things: the books you read and the people you get close to. Charles Jones
The Problem
Do you have a close friend? Not just someone to call for lunch, but a genuinely close friend?
Adult friendships are difficult to start and harder to keep.
Most men have a friendship deficit. We don't have anyone who is willing to just listen, to simply be a friend and listen, and not always to have a quick solution.
Friends Versus Acquaintances
You'd be fortunate if you had three real friends.
Are the men you consider friends really friends?
Too Close for Comfort
We sincerely want to have close friends, yet we fear letting someone get too close. We worry that if someone really got to know us, they wouldn't like us.
We need approval, to be accepted by another person, but we fear the opposite -- that we will be rejected.
Betrayed!
Few types of emotional pain sear as painfully and as deeply as that of betrayal by a friend.
Trust, transparency, and vulnerability are the stuff of which true friendships are constructed.
Taking the Risk
If you want a real friend, you will probably need to be the one who takes the initiative.
The price of friendship is personal vulnerability.
Transparency must characterize a friendship.
A Friend
A friend is there when you need him.
A friend keeps us on track.
A friend helps us crystallize our thoughts.
A friend will listen.
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1 comments:
Transparency is the key to building
and in most cases re-establishing what a friend really is. This act of builing a relationship, is what Jesus has been waiting for us to do. Have you considered that transparency is what's required in that "one-to-one" relationship that Jesus requires/or perhaps desires from you? Meditate on that.
"Do you really believe, that what you believe, is really,Real?" Jesus stands at the door and knocks, not bangs, but knocks gently-awaiting a transparent reply. Jesus calls us His friend, and brother. Why? don't we? When this relationship is reality, Jesus will direct you individually to other men, or perhaps only one, that'll be like a brother. It's hard to be transparent with a man you can't physically see with your eyes, or hear on the other end of the phone, or have a meal with; But with Faith, all things are possible. I believe that transparency applied through faith can start a revival of one's heart.
Men, Our best friend needs to be Jesus Christ first and foremost.
Amen.
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