Friendship: Maintaining

Therefore encourage one another 

and build one another up,

just as you are doing. 

1 Thessalonians 5:11

 "Compare the mink and the otter. They both have beautiful coats and are often hunted by man. They're both members of the weasel family, having sleek bodies with short legs. They're both wanderers. They eat a similar diet--mostly crayfish, frogs, and fish.

Yet in one way they aren't at all alike. They don't have the same disposition. The mink is always hostile. Often if will kill its own kind and even its own offspring. It'll slaughter a hen house full of chickens for the savage delight of it. Bred and raised in captivity for its pelt, the mink is as vicious in the barn as in the woods. It will quickly bite the hand that feeds it. 

By contrast, the otter is very friendly and incurably playful. Naturalists have seen otters frolicking in a stream or a pond for hours. When raised in captivity, the otter will make friends with all other kinds of animals, dogs included. A loving pet, it gets along well with humans and other animals alike.

Some people are like the mink, and others are like the otter. "Mink people" can't get along with others. They are often fighting, rebelling, or arguing. Others, like the otter, build and maintain right relationships."

[excerpt from Grade Seven BJU Bible Truths textbook]

I was reading through my worktexts from my high school Bible curriculum in preparation for teaching Sunday school, and I came across this lesson again. Combine that with the last couple hours before midnight and a music playlist, and you have my ideal setting for a blog post. ;) 

I immediately applied this illustration to friendships--though it was written and applies to all relationships. And so, as I often automatically do, I turned my questions and thoughts inward to my own relationships with friends. Was I building and maintaining communication with friends as I ought to? 

I don't usually have much of a problem building friendships, though it is something that grows over time--not an immediate process. But I never really thought about maintaining them. 

Maintain:

-to keep in an existing state

-to sustain against opposition or danger

-to continue or persevere in

-to support or provide for

As a relationship grows deeper, it doesn't require so much "work" to build it. Like a house is only built once and routinely updated over the years, so a friendship is built over the course of time and then stabilized by recurring interaction. The foundation for personalities, spiritual growth, and life settings, is already in place, but now it must have the continuing interaction for support. 

It is easy to get caught up in life, work, school, church, and family, and forget about everything else. Yet, a friendship cannot be kept in an existing state if there is no connection. Sometimes we just have to make time to spend time with people. If we see people as important in our lives, if we see them as men and women bearing the image of God, and if we see them as fellow soldiers for the Lord, then we will have to persevere in maintaining those friendships. When we realize the impact that we can have on a person--whether that be for 2 hours or 20 years--we will be willing to give of our time for them. Our regular duties in life often require our time, but money and college credits will not accompany us into heaven. Only the eternal souls of people will, and perhaps some of those people who will stand beside us in heaven will be the ones that we set aside time for. 

To illustrate: it's like what happens when you go away for a while and then come back and have to update everyone on your life. You feel somewhat disconnected until you've updated people on your life activities. If you never told anybody how things went while you were away, your lives would soon be distant from each other. Interaction is what sustains a relationship against danger--the danger being the possibility of losing that closeness.

In a society of constant activity and crammed schedules, sometimes we forget to just stop and remember the friends in our lives. We forget to maintain those relationships that were built. We forget to support those who have supported us. We forget to persevere and sustain the individuals that have walked along side of us. We forget that peoples' souls, emotions, and lives really do matter. 

And when we forget, we grow distant and indifference sets in. We begin to see people as only products on which to draw from for our satisfaction. We see them as just another part of life. And eventually this will lead to estranged relationships, and from that can come (as demonstrated by the mink's life) fighting, arguing, and rebelling, if we are not seeking to invest in the lives of those around us. 

There is no perfect relationship, and there never will be on this earth, but we can seek to resist the factors of life that Satan continually uses to pull people apart. We can persevere--even when our schedules are crammed--in sustaining believers around us, encouraging them and just being there for them. As demonstrated by the otter, let us build and sustain--let us maintain those friendships that God has placed in our lives. 

And one day, when we all meet together in Paradise, we will stand beside the ones who have shared in our lives. We will give glory to God as the complete body of the Church. It will not matter what fame or fortune we acquired while on earth. All that will matter is whether or not we have lived our lives on earth committed to His will--part of that being demonstrated by loving those around us in the same self-sacrificial way that Christ did, in laying down His life for His friends.

There is a brotherhood within the body of believers, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the common denominator. Friendship and fellowship are the legal tender among believers. (J. Vernon McGee) 

Will you maintain? 

In Him,
Kaleigh