“My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
-Jesus
Depending on the translation the Bible uses the word friend up to 100 times. That’s a lot! Do you remember the “good ol’ days”? These were the days when you would grab the landline and dial one of the handful of friends’ phone numbers you had locked in your brain. The days when you could pull out your school directory and call someone that lived bike-riding distance from you. How simple friendships worked: you grab your bike, I’ll grab mine, and we will do nothing for an entire afternoon and we will do it again tomorrow.
Somewhere along the way our interpersonal relationships have gotten a bit more complicated. We have built up scars and callouses. Many of us have moved to new locations, started families, or forgotten to call back too many times. The friendships that many of us hold are nothing to brag home about: a nod in the hallway at work, a shared hobby, or a pal that we know is doing nothing but helping feed one of our vices. We still deeply need these relationships though!
For me, it is a wild thought that Jesus would spend His final night with His disciples (see John 13-17) talking to them about the necessity of unity and capping it off by referring to this rag-tag group of nobodies as His friends. Think about what that means, and the kind of repeated conversations that it took for these bonds to be built. Think about how the primary path that Jesus claimed the world would know His Church is how we love one another. I wonder what life would look like for each of us if we took that call more seriously and every day decided that we would pursue and cultivate intentional friendships.
Read 2 Samuel 15 and Psalm 3
1. Think about the person you would consider the best friend you have ever had (past or present) - What did it take for you to build that friendship? What did it take to sustain that relationship? How did (or does) that person influence you?
2. In our chapter David has interactions with several friends (Ittai, the priests, and Hushai) - what do you notice about their interactions with one another?
3. Who are the closest friends in your life right now? How do they influence your relationship with God? How do you influence their relationships with God?
4. Who is someone that needs you to lean in and fight for them in friendship this week? What could that look like? How are you going to befriend them this week?