John 15
12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the words "A day for toil, an hour for sport, but for a friend is life too short"? Hello friend- they are beautiful words- to call one a friend. How many friends do you have? Someone once said that for some people you could count them on one hand and perhaps have a finger or two left over. I would like to believe that I have more friends than that.
There are all types of friends. Some are shallow and some deep and then there are the fair weather friends that hang around to enjoy what they can until called on to help. Those fair weather friends don't have the time but they wish they could be of help but be sure and call on them the next time.
There are then the real friends that are there when you need them. They will get up in the middle of the night, putting themselves out, in order to be of help with whatever is needed. These are the lifetime friends that become a part of our lives, hearts and are there for a lifetime.
Our Lord is that kind of Friend, "What a Friend We Have In Jesus". He initiated the friendship when he said I call you friends. I'll go with you all the way. Cast your cares on him for he cares for you not only in this life but also for eternity. We are told to show our love for our Lord and each other by being a friend and to look for opportunities to be a friend.
Some years ago in the City of New York a construction crew was working on a large hospital for children. One day one of the workers happened to look up and saw a little girl with beautiful curly hair looking down from a fourth floor window and holding a sign which said "Hi, I am Gail and I am very sick - would you be my friend?" The workman that had seen the sign pointed out the little girl and the sign to his co-workers. The workmen found a piece of cardboard on which they wrote "Hi Gail, we would love to be your friend". The little girl smiled and waved. A few days later the workmen decided to visit Gail, taking her flowers and presents. Gail was surprised, and with tears in her eyes hugged each man. Each new day found the men looking forward to waving at their new friend. On one morning they looked at Gail's window to see a nurse holding a little sign that read "Gail died this morning. She said to thank you for being her friend."
The poet Samuel Coleridge said "friendship is a sheltering tree that's branches reach out over the lives of others giving them shade, rest, relief and encouragement". Friends provide comfort and we find strength near them when we experience troubling times. How wonderful it is to call a friend and find comfort. Nothing could be lonelier than having no friend to call. There are a lot of lonely people in this world who need a friend that cares. I recall overhearing a conversation between a small group of women that were discussing an acquaintance and the fact that she had no friends due to her cantankerous nature of always complaining and never being happy with any part of her life. One of the group spoke up and said that she is all the things that you have said but "she is my friend!"
Our Lord told us to love the unlovely and to be a friend. In the time of our, Lord leprosy was a most dreaded disease and no one would be found near to a leper. The Scripture tell us that one day a leper ran up to our Lord asking to be healed, having never been touched before. Our Lord reached out, touched him and healed him. That act of kindness should give all of us the desire to reach out to those in need and be a friend.
My wife Betty and I are both rat packs however she denies it. She recently found an old letter dated October 7, 1974 that had been written to us by a friend who suffered the worst form of alcoholism, telling us he was in a home for alcoholics and thought that he was improving, He thanked us for our love and concern as well and most of all for being his "friend". I have to admit that there were times when he severely tested our friendship by calling at wee hours of the night when he was drunk. I often would have liked to hang up the phone but remembered the words of our Lord to love the "unlovely". Our friend with a lot of help overcame his dependency and before he passed from this life he said thank you for being my friend when I needed a friend. I never forget to remember but for the Grace of God there go I.
Some years ago my wife and I were living in the upstate of South Carolina and one of my dear friends was a local doctor who he and I spent a lot of time together fishing and bird hunting. He called me early one morning and suggested that it was going to be a lovely day and invited me to go fishing. I said "Doc I really wish that it were possible however I will be out of town most of the day and regret you will be going by yourself but that I will give you a call when I get back". My return was late in the evening, too late to make a call, when the phone rang and my wife answered. My first reaction was to have her tell him I was too tired and that I would return the call the next day, but because he was such a real friend I picked up the phone and he said that he had missed me but had managed to catch a lot of fish, describing what was for him a beautiful day. Our call lasted several minutes when he said it was getting late and he would go more in detail when we next visited. Later that night about 1 AM another call was received, this time from another friend who happened to also be a medical doctor, telling me that he had some bad news to relate, "Your old fishing and hunting buddy died just a few minutes ago". Then I realized how fortunate that I was that my friend shared his last few hours with me and I almost missed it! Friends are wonderful and are God given as our Lord said to his deciples "I call you friends".
Many years ago a friend sent me the following clipping out of a magazine which reads , I have in my files a letter written by a dear friend who has moved on to a better land, to that home not made with hands eternal in the heavens. The letter goes something like this: "Today in cleaning house I found this clipping wanted to send it to you and I want you to save it for your sons." The clipping has to do with friends and reads as follows:
"I think that God will never send
A gift so precious as a friend,
A friend who always understands
And fills each need, as it demands
Whose loyalty will stand the test,
When skies are bright. or overcast;
Who sees the faults that merits blame,
But keeps on loving just the same;
Who does more than creeds could do
To make us good, to make us true.
Earth's gifts a sweet enjoyment lend,
But only God can give a friend." -Author Unknown
Did you ever stop to think that God would like to send each one of us to be a friend to someone who needs a friend perhaps more than anything else? Did you know that the world is full of lonely people? People who are starving to death-not starving for physical food, but starving for a little attention. Did it ever occur to you that there are those who do not know what it means to be loved by even one person?
If God is to use us in the ministry of friendship, we need to qualify for what is expressed in this little poem. We might even make it a daily prayer:
If any little love of mine may make a life the brighter,
If any little song of mine may make the heart the 'lighter,
God help me speak the little word and take my bit of singing
And drop it in some lonely vale to set the echoes ringing.
William Allen White said: "I do not fear tomorrow, for I remember yesterday and I love today.
" And, it was Susan Coolidge who wrote the following inspiring lines:
Every day is a fresh beginning,
Every morning is the world made anew;
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you-
A hope for me and a hope for you.
Every day is a fresh beginning:
Listen, my friend, to the glad refrain,
And spite of old sorrow and older sinning. Failures, disappointments and possible pain,
Take heart with a new day, and begin again.
Have a good day and keep your spirits high!
The author Kathryn Hillen wrote an article "LET Me Call You Sweetheart- I Can't Remember Your Name."
"The pin, almost as big as a saucer, was worn by a middle-aged woman-without doubt, an extrovert. We were at a state PTA convention, encountering many unfamiliar faces. The pin seemed to be her humorous way of saying, "Let's be friends for today, but I'm not even going to attempt to remember your name."
We have many temporary relationships: those beside us on the plane or in the Laundromat, the people who camp next to us at a resort, and the neighbors who move in and out with such rapidity. It's up to us to decide if these contacts will be meaning-less or significant.
Ask God, "What would you like to say to this person through me?" You may be surprised. He may ask you to speak words of appreciation and encouragement, to witness about Christ, or only to be friendly. When we look a person in the eye and ask about their lives, we show that they are valuable. And even if we never do learn the person's name, we have been a channel through which God can reach him or her. That is both exciting and humbling.
The superintendent of a certain Sunday school offered a prize for the best poem on the subject of friendship. A young girl was the winner with a poem of only four lines.
Friendship is like a garden
Of flowers rich and rare;
It cannot reach perfection
Without much loving care.
Do you not agree that it is a beautiful poem, not only be-cause it was written by a very young child, but also because of the eternal truth within its brief four lines? Within those lines we have a definition of friendship. Also, the poem tells us what to do with friendship, how to preserve it, and how to make it rich and beautiful.
Did you ever stop to think that Jesus saved men just by making friends of them and that He commissioned His followers to go out and make friends of men and women? "I have called you friends . . .," said Jesus (John 15:15). It became an exalted and exacting word; it made high demands. For three swift and gentle years He went about doing good, being friendly, cheering the depressed, healing the sick, encouraging the lonely.
Someone has reminded us of the great truth "that the world needs a Society of the Friends of Jesus! That if the earth does not become a city of friends, it may soon be a city of destruction." If we have a friend, or have ever been a real friend, we know what friendship is. No one is useless who is a friend, and no one who has one is hopeless. Charles Kingsley calls friendship a "Shining Armor." He said:
"A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend; one human soul whom we can trust utterly; who knows the best and the worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us while the world flatters us to our face and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the day of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the day of difficulty and sorrow when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can."
There are many enemies of friendship, but the greatest is neglect. The little girl who wrote the poem of our four brief lines was right; it must be cultivated. Have you not seen friendships wither and die for the simple lack of attention? Friendships must be tended if they are to grow into beautiful blossoms. A flower will die if it does not get attention, and any friendship will do the same thing. Yes, let us remember that: Friendship is like a garden of flowers rich and rare; It cannot reach perfection without much loving care.
We all have heard the poem "Down the Road and around the bend"
"Down the road and around the bend
I had a friend his name was Jim
For forty years he knowed me and I knowed him
Then one day he moved away
I meant to go see him as time passed away
One day a letter came, Sir, Jim died today!" Friends are wonderful don't lose them!
H.Otto McDonald a member of Hodges Presbyterian Church, began broadcasting in 1952 his "Little Country Church," on the radio and whose devotions are on this web page. Otto has served as a Presbyterian Elder on three congregations and has been a Lay Minister for 52 years, and resides with his wife Betty Rose in Greenwood, SC.
The third Sunday of each month is "Can Sunday." Bring non-perishable goods which will be given to the Food Bank to help those families which are going through difficult times.
Soup labels are also collected to be given to Thornwell Home. If you wish,please mail soup labels to P.O. Box 99, Hodges, SC 29653.Thornwell School receives educational needs for donated soup labels and all are appreciated.