Friendship

They say, “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends”. So what are the characteristics of friendship that you won’t necessarily find in your family relationships?

False friends usually come from amongst people who make promises of help or honesty, but when the chips are down they don’t back up their words with actions. They may tell you what you would like to hear in order to get into your good books, perhaps because they want something from you. Then, when you need them most, they disappear or excuse themselves because they have other urgent business to attend to. By contrast, real friends will not always tell you what you want to hear, but they will be honest with you (faithful are the wounds of a friend). They will be there to support you when you have needs, even if it’s in the middle of the night or at some other inconvenient time.

Real friends don’t betray your trust nor talk about you behind your back. Provided you want it they will point out an area of your life where you are missing something or not coming over well to others. They can and will keep a confidence: You can talk to them about personal things and be confident what you share will go no further. False friends are just as likely to stab you in the back by saying something about you that they perceive to be true, but in reality is not. A real friend will tell you what people say and also tell you whether there is any substance in it. The question is: Do you want a friend like that, or would you rather have someone who tells you what you want to hear?

There is always of course the half-truth! Friends who are worth having will not knowingly deal in half-truths. You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they have (and the company they keep).

Good friends will respect your personal boundaries. For example, if you are Christian (or have some other religious faith), they will not ignore that and expect you to join in with their conversation or way of living, such as enjoying dirty jokes or engaging in practices that you do not like. For example, gambling, heavy drinking, swearing or wearing sexy clothing designed to pull the boys or girls, as the case may be. False friends are likely to ignore your views/morals and simply “mix it”.

Good friends are more likely to loan you money (if they have it) when you hit hard times or have some kind of emergency which you cannot handle in the short term. Trust is a key issue here. Do you trust one another? Mutual trust is essential for good friendship, just as it is for good marriage/partnership too.

Good friends don’t usually bring strife or division into your life. For instance, they wouldn’t want to rake around in your past “looking for muck”, so that they can tease or even threaten you with the disclosure of it. Good friends wouldn’t deliberately cover it up, but they would stand by you in spite of it. This implies another characteristic of a good friend: They are able to forgive, either when you do something wrong in general, or you wrong them in particular.

All of this raises the issue of how we recognise real friendship? It’s not always obvious and we need good quality discernment in order to get it right. Very often we learn through experience, good or bad. If it’s bad, at least its not wasted. Often mistakes teach us more than the things that we get right.

I find that spiritual discernment is really important and helpful in choosing friendships. And there are levels of friendship. Even Jesus, who chose 12- disciples to be his friends, had three to whom he disclosed more than the others. And he also chose one who let him down very badly.