I am distressed for you my brother

Special thanks to feesher for finding my mistake earlier.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me; Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women. – 2 Samuel 1v26

This is probably the last post of David’s and Jonathan’s friendship. I love the imagery here to describe what true friendship is. They were beloved and pleasant in their lives. Their love in some ways that I mentioned earlier even surpassed the love of women.

True friendship can be a lot like marriage. You choose to love your friend for better or worse. You choose to love a friend through highs and lows and up and downs and good times and struggles. You choose to love your friend no matter what.

I think of the lifelong friends I have. Many of them I have only recently reconnected with through Facebook. Those friendships have simply picked up where they left off. I feel as close to these friends as I did when we saw each other face to face. I recently saw and old friend who I had not seen in many years. What a blessing to not skip a beat in our friendship.

I hope that we don’t take our friends for granted. I hope that we don’t let them slip. If there are friendships that have shifted to the sideline perhaps today would be a good day to look them up and pick up again. In that regard I praise God for the technology that makes that possible.

Let us treasure the marvellous gift of friendship.