Nurturing the Treasure of Friendship – October 24, 1999
True friendship may be the highest expression of what it means to be human. Learning to rely on others and to care about them requires us to live outside ourselves and to suppress the selfish impulses that so often govern our lives. True friendship is a gift two people keep giving each other. Friendship expresses love in many ways, including listening, sharing, trusting, and serving.
Learning to love our friends and to care about their needs and problems changes and enriches our lives. Part of friendship’s miracle is the way it changes us as it grows. There’s nothing more commonplace than friendship, and yet there’s nothing more remarkable.
True friends divide life’s sorrows and make sweeter all life’s joys. It’s been said that to share with a friend is to see beauty twice; however, such precious relationships come at a price. Those who would experience the joys of friendship must sow the seeds of kindness, pull the weeds of selfishness, irrigate with the water of love, and supply the shade of forgiveness. The childhood playground adage that “he that would have a friend must be a friend” applies equally well to adult neighborhoods and corporate office buildings.
Often our most neglected friends reside in our own homes. How important it is to cultivate our friendships with those who are closest to us. The best marriages are between spouses who are also best friends. And children who grow up with friends around the dinner table will have their hearts knit together in love with their parents and siblings. The same bonds of love and trust that make friendship possible also build successful families.
Over time, we learn to measure our friendships not by what they give to us, but by what we give to them. True friends, who love and serve each other, are yet another expression of God’s perfect love for all His children. It’s beautiful to consider that men and women who learn all they can about friendship here may continue those heartfelt associations hereafter. One day, one act,
and one moment at a time, we can nurture the kind of relationships that time can’t diminish, by treasuring our friends as reflections of God’s limitless love.
Program #3662