Day 111: Thoughts on Friendship

I haven't had much time to really stop and think about certain things in my life. In the wake of recent, and very specific, blessings from God, I haven't taken a moment to be introspective because I've been running around trying to accomplish everything at once.

Today I stopped to wonder what friendship really means.

Last night at house church we spoke about community, and mission, and we discussed what enables groups of people to be productive. We had an entire list of scriptures, from the New Testament, that showed us how to relate to/treat each other.

Phrases like motivate, build up, encourage, love, admonish, etc. came up. These actions that are categorized with so much love are major necessities in any type of fellowship, and by extension, any type of friendship.

Looking back on that list, I'm thinking of the most significant friendships in my life an almost analyzing them. I am picking them apart to see what they are made of.

And, for the most part, I am satisfied.

For the most part, my friendships center around people who are wiling to love me, motivate me, build me up, encourage me, and even admonish (or correct) me when needed.

I am so blessed by those friendships.

But it's not what those friendships give me that show me how real they are. It's in the way these friends react to my friendship, and the way I care about them.

These friends accept my love, my encouragement, my motivation, and my admonishment. They are willing to recognize that I value them, and care about them, and generally think that they are amazing.

I know who my true friends are not in the way that they necessarily treat me, but in the way that they receive the way I treat them.

And so this is what makes it difficult for me to have friends who never really understand how much I value them, because in their misunderstanding of what they mean to me, they misunderstand what it is like to make someone else feel valued.

It is impossible to build up, motivate, encourage, and especially love someone as a friend if you don't know what it feels like to accept those things from someone else.

I feel like God is helping me to take a step back and examine, question, prod these thoughts that I am having.

He is teaching me that to give, we first have to be poured into. But to be poured into, we have to be willing to let someone pour into us.

In Christ,

Lilia