Friendship
What makes for good friends?
Pleasant speech multiplies friends, and a gracious tongue multiplies courtesies. Let those who are friendly with you be many, but let your advisers be one in a thousand. When you gain friends, gain them through testing, and do not trust them hastily. For there are friends who are such when it suits them, but they will not stand by you in time of trouble. And there are friends who change into enemies, and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace. And there are friends who sit at your table, but they will not stand by you in time of trouble. When you are prosperous, they become your second self, and lord it over your servants; but if you are brought low, they turn against you, and hide themselves from you. Keep away from your enemies, and be on guard with your friends. Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter: whoever finds one has found a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price; no amount can balance their worth. Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; and those who fear the Lord will find them. Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright, for as they are, so are their neighbors also. - Sirach 6:5-17
The wisdom of Sirach teaches us to be cautious and selective in making friends.
Faithful friends are treasures, and those who will not stand by you are not true friends at all.
We know this, right? And we like to think our friends are true, but do we really know? If we have not found ourselves in trouble and in need of a friend, how do we know for sure that our friends will stand by us?
I guess one way is to ask ourselves if we are willing to stand by them. If not, perhaps they aren't the friends we thought, or maybe we aren't as good a friend as we think.
It is possible, I guess, to be a friend to everyone and yet have no friends of your own. Maybe that is why Jesus told us we are all brothers and sisters, children of God. We are not friends, but relatives.
It doesn't take any effort to be a relative, but it does to be a friend.
The faithful friend is a good neighbor.
More to come...