Proverbs On Friendship, With Dr. Tim Keller

IN HIS BOOK OF DAILY DEVOTIONALS ON THE BOOK OF PROVERBS,  God's Wisdom For Navigating Life,   Dr. Tim Keller does a series on friendship  which occurs in his book during the month of June.  It is wise and well worth pondering.  I believe real friendship takes in person contact and proximity to grow and deepen.  E-mails, texts and social media contact just doesn't get it for very long.  So old fashioned friendship today, as opposed to fast friendship, needs more than ever to be disciplined and intentional because of myriad distractions in today's hectic world. Real friendship is reciprocal though at times one person carries more of the load.

The best marriages are at their core deep friendship.

I'll be posting for the next few Sundays on some of the traits of real, long-term friendship from Proverbs.  Hope it's inspirational to you, as it is for me:

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.---Proverb 18:24

INTENTIONALITY. This says that a friend can be better than a sibling---quite a statement in a culture that was far more family oriented than ours. But how so? Your family may be there for you but they may not really like you or understand you. And there can be long stretches of life in which you have no romantic partner or spouse. A friend, however, may stick with you over the years closer than a brother.

In the early stage of your life, you were shaped most by your family.  But for the rest of your life you will be shaped largely by your friends. You become like the people with whom you spend the most time.  As we will see, you can't live without friendship.  But remember how deliberate friendship must be. Erotic attraction and family relationships push themselves on you in various ways, but friendship will not. It must be carefully, intentionally cultivated through face-to-face time spent together.  And in a busy culture like ours, it is one thing that is often squeezed out.

How have your best friends over the years shaped and influenced you? Who are your best friends now?

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, you befriended a handful of disciples and through those friendships you changed the world. Help me choose my friends wisely, cultivate them carefully, and learn all I should learn from them so I can grow into the person you've called me to be,  Amen.