Love Part 2: Friendships
February 11, 2018
Love
Part Two: Friendships
“Walk
with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Proverbs
13:20
Welcome
back! As you probably already know,
today I’ll be continuing my series on love with part two. If you missed last week’s post, check it out here.
Last
week I went over some things about what this series is, defined love as put in the
dictionary, and talked about loving family.
Today we’re going to continue along those same lines, but today we’re
going to talk about your friendships.
In
case you forgot, I’ll go ahead and insert the dictionary definition of love
again.
Love- an intense
feeling of deep affection
Of
course one of the things we’ll be doing throughout all of these posts is to not
only look at what the dictionary and society say about love, but see what God’s
Word says. And maybe by the end you’ll
even have your own definition of love.
Mark
12:31 says “love your neighbor as yourself”.
Neighbor means your peers, the people around you. When we love other Christians around us, that
means we are loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, which pleases God. It’s important to build friendships with good
people. If we surround ourselves with
good company, that will make a more positive impact on your life and you’ll be
much happier.
Some
people make friends easier than others.
For me, making friends has never been easy. I’m a very shy and reserved person, not
outgoing like others. But one thing I’ve
learned is that it doesn’t take a lot to make a friend. Sure, it does involve stepping out of your
comfort zone a little, but let me tell you a little story. So about a year ago, I was at youth group and
we divided up into small groups of about five or six people. In my group one night we were going around
and introducing ourselves and after I introduced myself this girl looked at me
and said “you’re really really pretty”.
Ever since that compliment, we’ve been friends.
You
don’t have to think of a super impressive thing to say to someone. It can just be something simple like “hi, I
love your hair”. I think sometimes we
overthink and it prevents us from talking to people because we can’t think of something
really good to say. Another thing I’ve
learned when trying to make friends is to make yourself approachable. When you surround yourself with people you
already know, there’s a less likely chance that someone new is going to talk to
you because they assume you already have your group of friends.
I
like going places by myself. I’ve found
that by going alone, it reduces the stress of having to “impress” your friend
or whoever you’re usually with, and it makes you more open to other people
around you. It takes some getting used
to, but you’d be surprised what all you miss when you’re busy with other people.
So
enough about making friends, let’s talk about keeping them. This is the real key to having good friends,
because you want friendships that will last, right? As I said before, positive things come from
being around positive and uplifting people.
Believe it or not, friendships can be just as toxic as some
relationships if you “hang out with the wrong crowd”. But if you have good, positive people as
friends then this part should be a breeze.
The
most important part of a friendship is to talk.
All the time. About
everything. Okay maybe not everything,
but keeping secrets that you’ve told someone else from your friends is what
leads to those dreaded fights. I think
communication is the most important thing when it comes to friendships. If you don’t communicate properly with your
friends, you’ll eventually lose connection with them and they’ll drift away
which is pretty sad.
The
last thing is to tell them how much you appreciate them. By letting them know how much you appreciate
them being in your life, it shows them that you still care and are making an
effort to keep the friendship lasting and going strong. I’m really bad at this sometimes because I
tend to get upset whenever someone isn’t talking to me as much and I wonder why
but then I remember that to keep any friendship strong, you have to let the
person know that you still value the friendship. Even if that means texting them first (which
is something I literally hate doing), or getting over your pride and being the
one to step up and say “hey I just wanted to let you know how much I value you
as a friend”.
God
told us to love others as He loved us (John 15:12). He told us to walk with the wise, and forgive
others if you have grievances against them.
Obviously it’s hard to top God’s love for us, but if we clothe ourselves
in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12-14),
we attract people of the same character.
That’s the real truth to making and keeping friends.
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