Choosing friends

The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray. – Proverbs 12v26

There are few things more precious than friends. The word is beginning to morph and adapt with things like Facebook where anyone we have regular contact is called a ‘friend.’ But we still have that meaning of a true friend. This is the person whom Emerson described this way: ‘A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.’  

We have to be careful what we share with our Facebook ‘friends.’ True friends are different. True friends are those we choose to take into those innermost parts of our hearts. We don’t have worry about what we say or do. As Emerson said above, ‘before him I may think aloud.’

By their very nature true friends make us vulnerable. They know all about us. They know things that others might use against us. Emerson also wrote of true friends, "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." I like that, a true friend, or an ‘old friend’ is someone we can be stupid with.

I love my friends, all of them. But there are some friends that suit the descriptions that Emerson wrote about. It is this level of friend that Proverbs addresses here. These are the friend that wise far above Facebook, 

associates, co-workers, and acquaintances. It is this circle that we need to be careful about choosing. When we get to that level of friendship everything we do impacts each other. When people get into this circle they are going to impact us. We need to be sure that this level of friend is limited to those who are to going to help us to live right and do right.

We are to be friendly to all. That friendship is going to bring many into our circle of friends, but when it comes to this inner circle, choose carefully. True friends are those who we know will be there when we need them, and will always encourage us to do right.