Too Many Friends?

The man of too many friends [chosen indiscriminately] will be broken in pieces and come to ruin, but there is a [true, loving] friend who [is reliable and] sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

How could too many friends possibly cause us ruin? It's easier than one might think. Here's why. Friendship is hard; if you think you have a ton of friends, you might be misidentifying friendship; it is too hard to be a friend who is reliable and sticks closer than a brother to have but so many friends.

My grandson was telling me last night about his friend at school who he plays with all the time. Yesterday, this friend did not want to play with him. Does that make him an enemy? No! It gave me a chance to teach a toddler about boundaries. Afterwards, I considered how often it seems to me that we adults need to learn this stuff too.

Over the course of our lives we will have many opportunities to explore whether or not a person is a true, loving friend. Their (and our) limitations in the area of friendship is nothing anyone needs to judge. It's not always about whether or not someone is a 'good' or a 'bad' friend. More often, it is a question of discernment - is this person a friend to me? Do they have the capacity to stick closer than a brother? This is a high bar for me because my brother Bobby has set a high bar for my friends. I'm lucky that way.

The trick is to live in reality and not illusion. What does it look like to stick close? Tomorrow we'll explore that topic.