What Is a Friend?

My son Luke addressed the topic of friends on his blog www.thelwproject.blogspot.com . It go me thinking and I posted the following response. I hope you will read his blog and give friendships some thought. Who are your friends? How long will they be there?

This is a deep thought. I do not know of a place where the Bible speaks of seasonal friendships. Jonathan was a great example of a friend to David (1 Sam 18:1-4). He was committed to David to the point of death. He was there no matter what. A friend loves at all time (Prov 17:7). Space and time do not separate friends. Now, I do believe we might have a messed up definition of a friend that gives way to seasonal friendships. There are those "friends" who are conditional friends and there are those "friends" who are unconditional friends. Conditional friends leave you when the conditions are broken. Unconditional friends are still there when you make mistakes, do wrong, go against them, hurt them, etc. Now, this explains why we have so few lifelong friends. Lifelong friends requires forgiveness. How many times do true friends forgive? 70 times 7! So with all that being said, I believe you have people come into your life for a season and you have lifetime friends. That statement is based on a strong definition of friend. It could be that the seasonal friends are really acquaintances. I am a friend of God and He will always be my friend.