HEALING ART: PROMPT 12 ~ FRIENDSHIPS AND SUPPORT
What does God say about Friendship??? This has been at the forefront of my mind for a few days and I think that is due to this needing to be the next prompt. The Word has a few things to say about friends;
1. "Friends Love At All Times." Proverbs 17:17
Through good times and bad times a 'friend' will always love you. When I was going through the beginning stages of my depression there were friends and family who did not understand my illness. Instead of helping and support me they chose to stay far away from me. I understand that depression is scary thing to be around, granted, but a true friend or a family member who truly loves you would stay by your side no matter what! I lost many 'friendships' during this time... God has shown me since then that those 'friendships' were not fully rooted and so it was time to let them go.
When we are going through hard times we do not need aquaintances! We need loving support and friendship from our 'true' friends. I learned who those friends were and the rest were just strained out!
2. Sometimes even friends destroy each other, but there is a friend who loves more faithfully than a brother. (From the notes of Proverbs 18:24)
Ever heard the saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies". There are times when you need to sit down and evaluate your friendships. Are they nurturing you, or are they destroying you? This is not always an easy process to do. Believe me when I say this has taken me many years to realize. My husband would always see it happening before me, and even then I would justify it in my mind saying 'but I am helping them'.
3. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" John 15:13
This verse says a great deal about what God thinks about friends! Friendships should run deep, so deep that they would lay down their lives for one another and put each other before themselves.
When my kids were little the belonged to a kids group called, "Good News Bears" and their motto was this; "JESUS FIRST, OTHERS SECOND and SELF LAST!" What an incredible thing to teach your children!
So for this prompt let's take a good look at the people in our lives. Write a list of all the people you consider as friends. Now evaluate each friendship ~ are they acquaintances or true friends? Have they been there for you through rough patches and good? Do they bring you up or bring you down? For this prompt I chose to post my new scrapbook page of my best friend and I on our Arizona trip. Our friendship works for us because we both want to give and it is fully rooted in goodness.
Now it's your turn. Create what you think a friend should be, maybe do a pro and con list of all your friends or draw characatures of your friends and how you feel they are in your life. God places people in our lives for a moment, a season or a lifetime? Which of your friendships are lifetimers? Now concentrate on those lifers and figure out how you can be that for them too.
Good luck as you explore your friendships. Please share with me your evaluation of this prompt as I learn just as much from your comments.
God bless
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