Friendship

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."~John 15: 12-13

The above quotation is one of my favorite passages from the New Testament because there is so much going on in just two sentences. The first sentence seems pretty straight forward, a command that can be found a few different places throughout Scripture: We should love one another as Jesus has loved us. But what does that mean, to love others as Jesus has loved us? To find the answer, we must look back to Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments.

While the first two have to do with our relationship with God (we should have no other gods and we should not worship false images of God), the other eight teach us how we should treat one another. This is why, when the Pharisees ask Jesus which is the greatest commandment, he replies, "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself'"~Matthew 22: 36-39.

For one verse, there sure is a whole lot going on, but the second is even more powerful! Describing the greatest expression of love, sacrificing one's own life for that of her friends', Jesus also foreshadows his own death on the cross.  Jesus loves us so much that he will lay his life down for us, and he says this right after he tells his disciples to love one another as much as he loves them. Not only does he call us to love one another, but to be willing to sacrifice our lives for our friends. That's no easy task, but one I hope I grow closer to fulfilling every day of my life. 

I need regular interaction with my friends in order to function properly. When I go too long without seeing my friends, and especially without talking to them, my mood quickly plummets. I find myself becoming lonely, irritable, and seriously depressed, sometimes getting so bad I just want to cry, wishing there was someone that would save me from the pain. As I get older, those times seem to become more frequent as friends from high school (and now college) find themselves busier with their own lives and commitments. 

Thus, I've recently found myself trying to make new friends, and while it's definitely more difficult than it was in high school or college, I've met some really amazing people. As we've grown closer and begun to spend more time with one another, however, I've began to notice how different friendships really fill different needs in my life. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, but it definitely makes making friends a lot more difficult. 

For example, I barely ever get to see or talk with my best friends with her insane schedule. I'm lucky to have a full conversation with her once a week, and it's a miracle if we get to hang out every 3 or 4 months. Despite knowing just how busy she is, I can't help but wonder at times why she's still my best friend. Even so, she's one of the only people in my life I truly trust, and probably the only person I can ever be myself around. I'm not sure if she'd agree with me, but I've always just felt this special connection with her, like we were meant to be friends. 

Another example would be the friendships I developed in college. Going to a Christian school, I can't calculate how much time with my friends was spent talking about God, our faith, theology, etc. We would stay up half the night talking about the Bible and ministry, wake up hours before class to start the day with group devotions, and have Bible studies at a local sports bar with drinks. During those three years, I felt so close to God and the body of Christ.

After graduation, many of those friends got married and moved out of town (or even the country), and I just haven't been able to find anything like it since. Most of my friends are Christian, and I am a member of a church, but it almost appears like those kinds of friendship don't exist outside a Christian campus. It is these friendships I miss the most. Even when I'm with my other friends having a good time, my heart yearns for brothers and sisters in Christ I can walk alongside as we all grow stronger in our faith. Friendships like those of the disciples and Jesus.