Anytime You Need a Friend

Daily writing prompt

What quality do you value most in a friend?

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So, what quality do I most value in a friend? It’s not an easy question to answer. I’m not even sure who to classify as friends. When I look back over my life, apart from my original family and my current wife and kids, I can’t really say that I had any very intimate friends.

When I was a child and a teenager, I just liked to have a few people to hang around with. I suppose a sense of humour was always important, as were shared interests. And I liked them to have genuinely liked me and appreciated my company. Music was a huge thing for me in my teens, so my close friends would always like music, and we’d go to concerts together and play records. Being male, maybe I considered closeness a bit soppy. Then, in work and college, I always appreciated being among good humoured, nice, supportive people. I suppose it was the same after I became a Christian. In church life, I might be close to people who shared my theological outlook and worked with me in evangelism.

Now, when I analyze friendship in music, it’s all much more explicit about the love between friends.

Lean on me when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

And when we both get older
With walking canes and hair of gray
Have no fear, even though it's hard to hear
I will stand real close and say
Thank you for being a friend

You just call out my name
And you know, wherever I am
I'll come runnin'
To see you again
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there
You've got a friend

Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cause friends will be friends
Right till the end

If you're lonely
And need a friend
And troubles seem like
They never end
Just remember
To keep the faith
And love will be there
To light the way, yeah

Another one worthy of mention is Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Everyone is different, and I can’t say that I ever analyzed what I want in a friend very much. Lots of friends were great fun, but maybe I wouldn’t have poured my heart out to them or looked for favours from them. And then, maybe there were times when people were hugely helpful in difficult situations, such as pastors or doctors. I might not have classified them as friends, but they were more like true friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Of all the songs mentioned above, I think my favourite is the Mariah Carey song from the Summer of 1994. I had no interest in the song back then. I don’t think I even knew who sung it, but in more recent times, I was looking back on 1994 and rediscovered it. Musically, it has a gospel feel, but the lyrics also seem to suggest that we might be thinking about something bigger than human friendship. Here’s what Mariah said about it:

“Among all of my songs that one was especially significant, because I was desperately alone, removed from friends and full of fear,” she said. “My belief in God kept me alive – I wrote that song thinking about what I thought God would say to us in times of fear.”

So, it brings me to hymns about our friendship with God.

In sorrow He’s my comfort, in trouble He’s my stay,
He tells me every care on Him to roll:
He’s the Apple-tree of trees, the Bright and Morning Star,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

And round my heart still closely twine
Those ties which naught can sever,
For I am His, and He is mine,
Forever and forever.

Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer!

As I mentioned above, everyone is different, and friendship with Jesus isn’t necessarily a substitute for human friendship, particularly the fun “superficial” friendships that bring joy into our daily lives. But someday, that’ll all be just memories, and we might begin to appreciate the deeper things in life. One of my favourite hymns is Abide with Me.

2 Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see.
O thou who changest not, abide with me.

John 15:13-15
¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Verse 14 might slightly spoil this passage because you might think that Jesus will only be your friend if you succeed in loving others in the way that he loved us. Well, we’re never going to match the love of Jesus. You can see from the rest of the New Testament that Christians didn’t always get on with one another like a house on fire. But what Jesus wants is a willingness to repent, trust in him, and learn from him. And part of that is a willingness to love others. And that means everyone, as the parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates.