Last Lessons #38 - FRIENDS

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”  Proverbs 17:1

Everybody needs friends - human beings to spend time with, talk to, encourage and be encouraged by – people who love us and whom we love.  It is wonderful when our closest friend is a sibling or other relative.  But if they do not live with us or near us, and we cannot see them and hug them, we are likely to become lonely.  We need friends.  I remember when my husband died and I had moved to Florida from Texas where I had had several close friends, it was hard for me.  I had children and employees and students that I spent time with, but it was not fair to expect my children, my employees, or my students to be my best friends.  I should be-friend them and love them dearly, but I needed to be their mother, or their employer, or their teacher.  God intended my relationship to them to be for a different purpose than only a friend.  

So where did I find friends?  It was the same place I made friends for most of my adult life; I came together with others who had, not just common interests, but a common purpose.  I joined others in mission work in Africa for a common purpose, I met with others for the common purpose of studying the Bible in BSF, and others joined with me for the purpose of putting together the Rafiki Foundation.  In all these activities I made my closest friends.

Now I want to suggest to you where you might make the best friends you will ever have.  Start a Rafiki Bible Study group or become a member of one.  Check with Rafiki (rafikifoundation.org) for how to do this.  Your purpose would be to study the Word of God with others face to face.  Not only do you learn what the Bible teaches, you also come to know others as you listen to them and pray with them.  A RBS group spends about one and a half hours every week together becoming friends because you have a common purpose.  If you are already a part of a RBS group, then you have friends!

One last thing: the best friend you will ever have is Jesus.  

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you.”  John 15:15

I know this because he is my best friend.  I can’t see him, but I can talk to him any time I want and I can listen to him as I read his words to me in the Bible.  And someday I will see him face to face.  In the meantime, I often find myself singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”   But I change the pronouns to the singular, that is, “What a Friend I Have in Jesus”.  If you don’t know this hymn, look it up on Google to get the words.  

I always have a Friend and so do you if you are a Christian.