“Two can accomplish more.” Ecclesiastes 4:9 TLB
“Life is better when it can be shared.”
My thoughts today are about “the power of friendship.”
A friend is a special and precious thing. Life is better when it can be shared. Your problems and struggles are halved, and your joys and successes are doubled. Everyone wants to have a friend, but first you need to be one. Be the kind of friend that you would want someone to be for you.
The better way to satisfaction is by serving the needs of another, rather than looking for someone most likely to meet your needs. It is not that I am so noble as to be selfless. I am smart enough to have observed that the best way for good things to come to me is when I send good things a friend’s way. The right friends come from your being the right kind.
I have found these three things to be true about the principle of sowing and reaping: you will reap what you sow; you will reap more than you sow; you need to sow what you expect to reap. I simply believe the truth that if you sow what you want, you will receive what you need. Unlike the limitations in the physical realm, you may not always reap your harvest in the same field where you sowed, but in the realm of the Spirit, God will provide a harvest of what you sowed.
Do you remember the wonderful, Bible story of Joseph? After the history of his own shattered dreams turning into nightmares, he could have never wanted to hear or think of dreams ever again. I love the heart of Joseph as expressed toward two friends who were disturbed by dreams they had experienced. Joseph simply said, “Tell me your dreams.” Genesis 40:8.
The right friends could be God’s way to take you where He wants you to go. Joseph could have politely refused to become involved so as not to relive his own pain again, even for friends. Or he could have spilled out every negative thing that his dreams seemed to have cost him, and advised them to forget their dreams as quickly as they could. But no, he was willing to be a friend to them and help as he could. “A man who has friends must show himself friendly.” Proverbs 18:24 NKJV. Joseph could not have known that God would use his kindness to those friends as the path of finally realizing his own dreams of long before.
The right friends can be God’s tools to make you better. The dearest of my friends told me that years ago I said to him, “Thank you for not letting me be who I would have been without you.” I don’t recall saying that, but I hope that I did because I know I have felt that way about his friendship as well as others. I am witness to the truth, “A man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Proverbs 27:17. So much of whatever good I have become is the product of God’s grace to me through the friendships with which I have been blessed.
My prayer for you today is that friends tell you the truth you need to hear.