“Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.”
– Proverbs 27:9 [ESV]
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
– Psalm 133:1 [ESV]
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”
– Proverbs 17:17 [ESV]
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
– Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 [ESV]
All these verses show why we need friends. Friends are people you want to count on in sticky situations. Family is great, but your family can’t always do for you. Having solid and meaningful friendships can bring you out of a lot of situations that family can’t do. When I left North Carolina to move to Florida 3 years ago, I knew no one there. I had to create a community of my own because I was living with my aging aunt then, and I knew she couldn’t always take me to the places I needed to go. I was blessed that I was able to find a Godly group of people my age I could talk to when I first moved to Jacksonville because one of the things I was worried about was making friends. Most people who move to a new city don’t try to make friends because they only view that city as a place to work and not a place to build community.
Loneliness is a big struggle for people my age because we are a very transient generation. We are more likely to move away from family and friends post-undergrad than any previous generation. Despite coming from the social media era, most of the people I interact with on social media I don’t see regularly. Having a friend you can talk to virtually is one thing, but it’s a whole different story when you can physically see them.
Having Christian friends is very important because they will hold you accountable when you slip up and encourage you when you’re down through God’s word. Secular friends can only help you so much, we want to have people in our lives who aren’t saved, but our core friend group should be other believers. We need a Godly community to help us grow and flourish as Christians. The world can’t tell us how to live holy because they don’t know Jesus. Friends are essential to our growth because they will get us where God wants us.
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