By J.R. Miller
We use the word friend very lightly. We talk of our "hosts of friends," meaning all with whom we have common friendly relations, or even pleasant acquaintance. We say a person is our friend when we know them only in business or socially, when their heart and ours have never touched in any real communion. There may be nothing amiss in this wide application of the word; but we ought to understand that in this use of it, its full sacred meaning is not even touched.
To become another's friend in the true sense--is to take the other into such close, living fellowship that their life and ours are knit together as one. It is far more than a pleasant companionship in bright, sunny hours. It is more than an association for mutual interest, profit, or enjoyment. A true friendship is entirely unselfish. It seeks no benefit or good of its own. It loves not for what it may receive--but for what it may give. Its aim is "not to be ministered unto--but to minister."
There are many people who take others into what they call relations of friendship--but who think only selfishly of what these people may be to them. They seek social advancement and hope to enter new circles through certain friends. Or they aspire to enter some brilliant intellectual clique and seek the entrance by forming a friendly connection with one whose name is on the honored list. Or they wish to win business success, and they spare no cost to make friends of those who are influential in the community and can help them in the achieving of their ambition. Or they seek merely passing enjoyment, and choose for companionship, one which seems amiable, kindly, congenial, with a good measure of sweetness and power to please--and thus minister to their own cravings. In all these instances there is nothing but selfishness, not one trace of true affection. To apply to them the name of friendship is to degrade and desecrate a sacred and holy word. The friendship which is true--"seeks not its own."
It costs to be a friend. "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health," runs the marriage engagement, and true marriage is a type of all the true friendships.
When we take a person into our life as a friend we do not know what it may cost us to be faithful to our trust. Misfortune may befall our friend, and they may need our help in ways that will lay a heavy burden upon us. It may be in their business or in their secular affairs that they shall suffer.
Timely aid may enable them to overcome their difficulties and attain to prosperous circumstances. It is in our power to render them the assistance that they need, without which they must succumb to failure. It will cost us personal inconvenience and trouble to do this. But they are our friends. We have taken them into our life, thus becoming partners in all their affairs. Can we withhold from them the help which they need and which we can give, without breaking the holy covenant of friendship and failing in our sacred obligations to them?
Or it may be the misfortune of sickness--broken health which falls upon our friend. They are no longer able to be helpful to us, as they were in the days when the compact of friendship was first formed. Then they could contribute their part in the mutual ministering, giving as well as receiving. Then friendship for them brought us no care, no anxiety; exacted from us no self-denial, no sacrifice; laid on us no load, no burden. On the other hand, it was full of helpfulness. It brought strength to our heart by its loving cheer. It was a blessing to our life, in its warm inspirations, in its sweet comfort, in its satisfying affection. It stood beside us in all our times of trial, with full sympathy, putting its shoulder under our burdens, aiding us by its counsel, its encouragement. It brought its countless benefits and gains. But now in its feebleness and brokenness it can give us no longer this strong helpfulness and uplifting. Instead, it has become a burden. We must carry the loads alone, which their friendship so generously shared previously. They need our help, and can give in return only a weight of care.
For example, a wife becomes an invalid. In the early days of her wedded life, she was her husband's true help-mate, his royal partner in all duty, care, toil, and burden-bearing. Her friendship brought back far more than it received. But now she can only lie still amid the cares, and see her husband meet them alone. Instead of sharing his burdens, she herself has become an added burden, which he must carry. But his love falters not for a moment. He loved her, not for the help she was to him--but for her own dear sake. Hence his love changes not, when she is no longer a strong help-mate--but a burden instead, which he must carry. His heart only grows more tender, his hand gentler, and his spirit braver. He finds even deeper, sweeter joy now in serving her--than he found before in being served by her.
That is the meaning of true friendship wherever it exists. It is not based on any helpfulness or service, which it must receive as its condition. Its source is in the heart itself. Its essential desire is to help and serve. It makes no nice calculation of so much to be given and so much to be received. It stops at no cost which faithfulness may entail. It hesitates at no self-denial, which may be necessary in the fulfillment of its duties. It does not complain when everything has to be given up. It only grows stronger and truer and more constant, as the demands for giving and serving become larger.
There is another phase of the cost of friendship which must not be overlooked--that which comes with the revealing of faults and flaws and sins. We see people at first only on the surface of their life, and we begin to admire them. We are attracted to them by elements that win our attention. As we associate with them we become interested in them. At length our affection goes out to them, and we call them our friends. We walk with them in pleasant companionship that makes no demands on us, and that discloses but little of their inner life. We know them as yet, only on the surface of their character, having no real acquaintance with the self that is hidden behind life's conventionalities. Nothing has occurred in the progress of our friendship to bring out the things in their disposition, which are not altogether lovely.
At length, closer intimacy or ruder contacts reveal faults. We learn that under the attractive exterior, which so pleased us, there are blemishes, spots, flaws, and infirmities, which sadly disfigure the beauty of the life. We discover in them elements of selfishness, untruthfulness, deceitfulness, or meanness which pain us. We find that they have secret habits, which are repulsive. There are uncongenial things in their disposition, never suspected in the days of social fellowship, which show offensively in the closer relations of friendship's intimacy.
This is sometimes so in wedded life. The longest and freest acquaintance previous to marriage, reveals only the better side of the life of both. But the same is true in greater or less degree in all close friendships.
This is oftentimes a severe test of love. It is only as we rise into something of the spirit of Christ that we are able to meet this test of friendship. He takes us as we are, and does not get weary of us, whatever faults and sins he discovers in us. There is infinite comfort in this for us. We are conscious of our unworthiness and of the unloveliness which is in our souls. There are things in our lives, which we would not reveal to the world. Many of us have pages in our biography, which we would not dare to spread out before the eyes of anyone.
There are in our inner heart feelings, desires, longings, cravings, jealousies, motives, which we would not feel secure in laying bare to our dearest, truest, and most patient and gentle friend. Yet Christ knows them all. Nothing is hidden, from his eyes. To him there is perfect revealing of the innermost springs of our being. Yet we need not be afraid that his friendship for us will change, or grow less, or withdraw itself--when he discovers repulsive things in us.
Yet, what we would not reveal to gentlest-hearted friend of the innermost things of our life, not daring to trust the strongest, truest, most compassionate human friendship, lest the discovering of our faults, blemishes, and infirmities should cost us our friend, Christ knows continually, and his eye sees always. Yet he loves us, loves unto the uttermost.
This is the ideal human friendship. The finding of blemishes does not repel it. Even if the friend has fallen into sin, the love yet clings, forgiving and seeking their restoration. No doubt there are such friendships. A gentleman had a friend whom through long years of intimacy he had learned to love deeply and to trust implicitly. A sacred covenant of friendship had passed between them and had been sealed and was regarded as inviolable. One evening he found his friend in great distress, and pressing to know the cause, he received at last the confession of a series of sins, involving debasement and dishonor of a very grievous kind. The revelation almost killed him. After the first shock came revulsion. He would thrust his friend from him forever. But after a struggle, love triumphed. There were extenuating circumstances. His friend was weak, and had fallen under sore temptation, and was now penitent, crushed by a sense of shame and sorrow.
The sin was forgiven and put away forever, and the friend restored to the old sacred place. From that time their relations were closer than ever until the friend died; and since death the love is cherished most sacredly.
This was Christ-like friendship. He loved his own in spite of all there was in them to hinder or check his love. We are apt to complain if our friends do not return as deep, rich, and constant love as we give them. We feel hurt at any evidence of the ebbing of love in them, when they fail us in some way, when we think they have not been altogether faithful and unselfish, or when they have been thoughtless and ungentle toward us. But Christ saw in "his own" a very feeble return for his deep love for them, a most inadequate requital of all his wondrous goodness and grace. They were inconstant, weak, and unfaithful. They were ungentle. Yet he continued to love them in spite of all that he found unbeautiful and unworthy in them.
And this is the friendship he would teach his disciples. As he loves us--he would teach us to love others. We say men are not worthy of such friendship. True, they are not. Neither are we worthy of Christ's wondrous love for us. But Christ loves us not according to our worthiness--but according to the richness of his own gracious heart. So should it be with our giving of friendship; not as the person deserves--but after the measure of our own character.
These are illustrations enough to show what it may cost to be a friend. When we receive another into this sacred relation, we do not know what responsibility we are taking upon ourselves, what burdens it may be ours to being faithful, what sorrow our love may cost us. It is a sacred thing, therefore, to take a new friend into our life. We accept a solemn responsibility when we do so. We do not know what burdens we may be engaging to carry, what sacrifices we may unconsciously be pledging ourselves to make, what sorrow may come to us through the one to whom we are giving our heart's love. We should choose our friends, therefore, thoughtfully, wisely, prayerfully; but when we have pledged our love we should be faithful whatever the cost may be.
