“Grafted into our bones is a need for each other.”

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime (p. 52). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Dick said, “At a breakfast with some diplomats and former government officials, on the spur of the moment I was asked to offer a thought for the day. In my comments I lamented the truth that DC was not a town in which one wanted to toss his credentials on the table, because they would most certainly be trumped by someone. Someone who had more power, more money, more degrees, more years, more connections, more experience. More anything. When I finished talking, one of the conveners, a former cabinet member to the president of the United States, said, ‘That’s true, Dick, with one exception. If your credentials say “Friend,” everyone wins.’ ‘Friend’ is the greatest title and the highest rank you can hold.”

That is so true. He then says, “Friendship is vulnerable and sacrificial. It permeates the deepest places of our souls. So William Butler Yeats speaks a deep truth when he says, ‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.’ You cannot negate the strength of friendship. You cannot underestimate the durability of a bond forged in the fires of adversity. You cannot belittle the force of prayers prayed on behalf of those we simply ‘like.’ In friendship we get to look like Jesus, journeying two by two, arm in arm, becoming more than we could ever be by ourselves. We are designed for this grand company. And that is powerful stuff.”

So how do you get friends? You become a friend. Reach out to people. But I’m shy. That is a choice that means you are alone. There are people in your world who need your friendship. So go be their friend. Is it easy? Not necessarily but it is worth it. Jesus is your friend and he will help you in the adventure of finding that person who needs a friend like you. We really do need each other.

So who is your friend or who could be your friend?

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