When asked "What is a friend"? Aristotle replied, "A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
I expect what we like most about friends is the fact that they are comfortable.
While love is blind, friendship deliberately closes its eyes to the mess in our living rooms, or anywhere, for that matter.
Friendship is the workhorse of all that is healthy in human society. It holds marriages together, makes the workday go smoothly, and makes recreation more fun. All true love, including marriage, has friendship for a base.
Contrary to jokes about money and friendship, I have seen friends give, not lend, thousands of dollars to each other, with never a second thought.
I expect that God created humans to be his friends. After he created the first man, he assessed the situation with "It is not good that man should be alone." (Genesis 2:18). Adam was going to need, more than anything else, a friend.
At the root of nearly every mental health problem is one powerful reality, loneliness.
We describe it in many ways, abandonment, low self-worth, isolation, helplessness.
Underneath is a struggle to belong, to be a part of, to be connected, to be needed by another, to have a place on the team. Whatever you choose to call it, one word says it better than any other, loneliness. And one word is the cure, friendship.
One of the most distressing human scenes I have ever witnessed was at a service station/restaurant in the State of Wyoming. A woman had just come out of the restroom; she looked around and started to tremble and sob uncontrollably; then, she fell in weakness and despair to the sidewalk. Gloria (Mrs. Marple) and I went up to her to find out what was the matter. With a quivering voice, she told us she was dying with cancer and that she and her husband were on one final trip in the west. She said her husband dropped her off at the restroom, the apparently drove off without her. I have never in my life seem a ore frightened person, at that moment, she was alone. As it turnout, her husband was around the corner of the building getting gas for the car.
Friendship is that one asset that keeps us from being useless garbage. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend."
Friends give us value. One of the first things a mental health counselor will want to know is, "Tell me about your friends and family"? The reason is clear, he or she knows that it there is a friend working to help, progress will be more likely.
Indeed, friends are wells in the wilderness and lights in the darkness. They will help you read the map when you are lost, and they will share their lunch with you when you're hungry. Emerson wrote, "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature."
For this reason, Jennie Jerome Churchhill, mother of Winston Churchill, advised, "Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light." It makes good sense that one of our best loved Christian hymns is "What a Friend We Have In Jesus."
Jesus said, "I have called you friends" (John 15:15). Hearts heal best when they are united with God and others (Matthew 22:36-40).
Nearly 40 years ago, our oldest daughter, Glorianne, returned home from her first day at school. We knew she would do well when she described her day; she said, "Guess what? I have a friend."