Rev. Don Campbell
One True Friend is Better Than a Thousand Fair Weather Ones
The Message has Solomon saying: “By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Perhaps this is one reason Jesus sent the 12 and the 70 out in twos.
The passage is not about marriage, but when a husband and wife are best friends, those marriages seldom break up.
One true friend is worth a thousand fair-weather friends, and one who is blessed to have one forever friend is warmed in spirit even when the chilling winds of life’s storms batter one about, “but who can be warm alone” (Ecclesiastes 4:11). We all have a friend in Jesus, but flesh and blood needs flesh and blood.
William Penn (1644-1718) describes a true friend: “A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.”
To have a true friend, we must be a true friend.
