Knowing qualities of good friends

 THE theme of friendship has inspired many a story and movie. 

Experiences in your life should teach you who good friends are.

Definition(s) of a good friend can be found in good poetry or prose. We can also find them in the Bible.

Let me share some verses in Proverbs that teach us about good friends.

Proverbs 18.24: A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. 

Friends do not just say they are friends – they show it in things, resources and also time they give to you. Good friends with their good deeds seem much closer to you than your own relatives. That should remind you of the phrase “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. 

Proverbs 27.5:  Open rebuke is better than secret love.

Proverbs 27.6:  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

In combining both verses above in chapter 27, note that good friends do not give you everything you want, or go along with your every plan.

At times they will oppose you (to wound you, so to speak), as when you want to do something that is not right.

They would step in to stop you continuing with your plan as when they stop you from resorting to violence when you are angry over something.

People who agree with everything you do are not good friends – they would not help you grow.  

Proverbs 27. 17: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Good friends “sharpen” others – in schoolwork, attitude or just lift your level of thinking. 

For a tool to be sharpened, parts of it would be ground and would fall off.

Good teachers, coaches and parents can be harsh but at the end the child under their care becomes “sharper”.

Uncaring teachers, coaches and parents do not groom children to be “sharp”. 

 Proverbs 27.19: As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.

In life, we often need a mirror to look into, to see ourselves, the true us.

Good friends tell us (as a good mirror does) things that others may find it hard to say for various reasons. 

When we are not good, good friends tells us so that we are not good – so that we work on polishing the rough edges.

The good mirror also pays the right compliments at the right time.

I think you are aware that there are plane mirrors and curved mirrors.

Plane mirrors give a better reflection of you – curved mirrors do not.

Friends are also like that.

Some tell you what you are really are – kind, too self-conscious, smart and intelligent or selfish, too talkative and careless. Others do not. 

Do you have good friends? 

l Next week: Being a good friend