quality friendships

as a busy society, we have begun to put more and more value on time. i know with my busy schedule, i'd love to have an 8-day week. the problem is that we focus on quantity instead of quality. we will never have more of it, so what we should focus on is the quality of the time we do spend on things.

the same can be said of friendships. we need to focus our efforts with friends on the quality of those friendships and not the quanity. Proverbs 13:20 says, "he who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." as adults, we teach our kids to choose their friends wisely, but we don't always do the same. this passage shows the difference in having friendships with "the wise" versus "fools." the difference in those two should be obvious, but we are drawn to fools all the time. we devalue what we look for in a friendship. "being around and available" is a false sign of a good friend. you see, they may very well be around because people don't want to be their friend for a reason. they may very well not have friends because they are not a friend themselves. try hanging out with Satan...i'm sure he's available and around for you. that alone does not make a friend. another false sign is that they make you feel good...well, so do drugs, but it's not the kind of "feel good" we need. these aren't bad qualities, but they do not make a friendship, so quit looking for easy and available because it could lead to trouble.

there is greater danger to these types of friendships than simply, "oops, well they weren't a very good friend after all." as this passage states, "a companion of fools suffers harm." notice it doesn't even state that the fool suffers harm, but simply the companion? deep down fools hate their lives, and usually will complain about them all the time. they are always "cheated" but they do nothing to help themselves change it. and you can see it easily as you give them sound advice that they refuse to take. well, those people have nothing to lose. while we think we can help them, and we try to keep the friendship shallow, we will get sucked into their world. and in their world, they have nothing to lose, so they have no problem bringing you down with them or knocking you down to benefit themselves. they don't like themselves, and they still put themselves first...so where does that leave you on their list of priorities and loyalties? very low... watch how they treat their enemies and realize becoming a friend with a fool can easily lead to becoming an enemy. watch as they step on people around them to get higher, and know that being around them can lead to you becoming a "step." watch how they are friendly to people and listen to what they say about them when they walk away because they probably do the same to you.

Proverbs 26:4-11, "do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. like cutting off one's feet or drinking violence is the sending of a message by the hand of a fool. like a lame man's leggs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. like tying a stone in a sling is the giving of honor to a fool. like an archer who wounds at random is he who hires a fool or any passer-by. as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."

"Friends are not like books, there aren't good ones and bad ones...they either are one or they aren't."