Friend-ish By Kelly NeedhamMinta

Because all our needs are met in Christ, we can now be a friend to all.

Don’t misread that. I didn’t say be friends with all. We’re limited people, and we cannot have hundreds of friends (sorry, Facebook). But we should be friends to all. This means we are not picky in our befriending. We extend friendship to whomever God has placed around us, not just those we click with. Remember, the second command is to love your neighbor as yourself. If you’re wondering who to befriend, start by looking at who God has already placed nearby. These are quite literally the neighbors you are called to love.

We need to stop for a moment and address a common myth: that great friendship is based on compatibility. Yes, there are some people we have an easier time getting along with. And there’s nothing wrong with that! These are the people who have similar personalities to us, with similar preferences and common interests. Building friendships with people who are like us is easy, because it doesn’t cost us much to love them. But while it is not wrong to have compatible friends, it is not an indicator of anything special.

Rather, it is the people with whom our personalities and preferences clash the most that force us to exhibit the truest form of love—a sacrificial love. To befriend people who aren’t like us requires that we set aside our own desires and tendencies to extend friendship to them. This is what Jesus calls us to: extending friendship not just to people we click with but to those who rub us the wrong way. 

Being a friend to all also means befriending those who don’t seem to offer us anything in return. Children, adults with special needs, the elderly, the unpopular, and the poor are a few examples.

If we only befriend those who can obviously give something back to us, aren’t we only giving to get? Aren’t we simply befriending others out of love for ourselves? Choose to pursue friendships with people who don’t enhance your social circle and can’t pad your bank account. If you do, I promise you’ll be rewarded with a different kind of wealth. Because the kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit.