True Friendship

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**Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Aaron Stern, pastor of the Mill, the college and 20-somethings ministry at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. He is also a good friend and responsible for my wife and I meeting.

A few years ago I sat in my living room with a group of friends and asked the question, “What is the definition of friendship?” The answers were diverse, fun, deep and rich with experience. There were however a few big ideas that rose to the surface.

A friendship is characterized by enjoyment, trust and selflessness. In true friendship, all the feelings are mutual and, in the end, the friend is more important than the relationship itself.

I know now that I have great friends. How do I know? My wife and I just went through a crisis.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Crisis doesn’t make the man; it only exposes him for what he already is.” I think friendships are similar. Crisis doesn’t make friendships; it only exposes what is already there.

These last two months have been the most difficult times of our lives. We lost our baby girl when we were eight months pregnant. My wife gave birth; we had a memorial service, picked a headstone and buried a piece of our soul — something no parents should ever have to do.

Through it all, we have felt the incredible strength of friendship. We have been surrounded by people we thoroughly enjoy. People we trust implicitly with our exposed, hurting souls and broken dreams. We have experienced selflessness in the prayers, the meals made, the trips to the hospital in the middle of the night, the flowers, the gifts, the cards, the visits and the phone calls. And in this journey we discovered another characteristic of friendship that I would like to add to the description formulated not long ago in my living room.

Friends are those who walk through life with you.

Not just the fun times but the really difficult ones too. One of the most amazing things we have witnessed through this season of loss has been our friends grieving with us. Not just the “I feel so sad” kind of grief but an outright, wholehearted weeping, feeling the pain and carrying the burden in our darkest hour. They walked with us through the heartache and, in some measure, experienced it themselves.

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Of course Jesus was the perfect example of a friend. For me, though, the idea of Him laying down his life has seemed a bit one dimensional…shown only on the cross. However, I think there is more to it.

Jesus also laid down His life by coming from a perfect heaven to a broken earth. He is Immanuel, the God that came near to our lives and walks through it with us. David captures this idea so eloquently in Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” He doesn’t just give us the advice necessary to navigate life or say to us, “Meet you on the other side.” He walks straight through it all with us.

True friends walk through life with you. All of it. The ups. The downs. The highs. The lows. The best parts. The worst parts. The happy days. The sad days. All of it.

We are supposed to have friendships like that. We were designed to experience community like this. It encourages the weary soul, provides supporting strength, beats off the storms of loneliness, rallies when you feel out of steam, energizes the heart and keeps you leaning toward Jesus. We need it.

So do we have to wait for a crisis to find out if we have crisis-worthy friendships? No, we can make an honest evaluation today. Do we have friendships or merely acquaintances? Would our friends jump on an airplane at a moment’s notice, wherever they might be in the world, to come be at our side?

Wisdom says that to have a friend is to be a friend, so find out where your friends are and what they are facing and walk with them through it. Be to them the friend you hope to have when your tough time comes.

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