Friends

I was reflecting today about a lot of things. One thing that came to mind was friends. Friendship involves recognition or familiarity with another's personality. Friends often share likes and dislikes, interests, pursuits, and passion.

Genuine friendship involves a shared sense of caring and concern, a desire to see one another grow and develop, and a hope for each other to succeed in all aspects of life. True friendship involves action: doing something for someone else while expecting nothing in return; sharing thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or negative criticism.

True friendship involves relationship. Those mutual attributes we mentioned above become the foundation in which recognition transpires into relationship. Many people say, "Oh, he's a good friend of mine," yet they never take time to spend time with that "good friend." Nor do they even return emails or phone calls or well wishes. Friendship takes time: time to get to know each other, time to build shared memories, time to invest in each other's growth.

Trust is essential to true friendship. We all need someone with whom we can share our lives, thoughts, feelings, and frustrations. We need to be able to share our deepest secrets with someone, without worrying that those secrets will end up on the Internet the next day! Failing to be trustworthy with those intimate secrets can destroy a friendship in a hurry. Faithfulness and loyalty are key to true friendship. Without them, we often feel betrayed, left out, and lonely. In true friendship, there is no backbiting, no negative thoughts, no turning away.

True friendship requires certain accountability factors. Real friends encourage one another and forgive one another where there has been an offense. Genuine friendship supports during times of struggle. Friends are dependable. In true friendship, unconditional love develops. We love our friends no matter what and we always want the best for our friends.

Many of you are my true friends and some of you are my genuine friend.
I am grateful for you all but mostly I am so blessed to have so many True friends that I know will help me, comfort me, and encourage me.

Also I felt that the Holy Spirit was telling me today that if you love and appreciate someone let them know. Its really not that hard to encourage someone, if someone tells you that you look good return the complement.

I know that when someone email me and tells me they were blessed by something I did I feel so loved and appreciated, but on the other hand when someone don’t return my email it makes me feel to be brutally honest it hurts my feelings. So if I feel like that and I know who I am to my father can you imagine what someone who does know Him will feel?

God's Word tells us that a friend sticks closer than a brother, and that in order for one to be a friend, one must show themselves friendly (Proverbs 18:24). The question is: what type of friend do you desire to be?