Here's to Friends

When God said in Genesis 2: “It is not good for man to be alone”, He meant it. God is a God of relationships, intimacy and belongings. God embodies the perfect relationship with the interaction of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, being One Being. Because of that, He glorifies himself bringing people together.

But when God said that, did He only focused on the husband-wife relationship? I don’t think so.

In seasons of singleness, we think that God forgot that previous statement concerning us; we imagine that God doesn’t care that we are actually alone, and we think that He rejoices in our singleness. I believe that is a complete lie: First of all, I don’t think God rejoices in our longings and sufferings. Second, God keeps us single because He wants to us to love Him first, not to idolize a relationship neither a person over Him. He wants to give Himself to us. Third, loving Him first is the best thing that could ever happen to single persons before we meet someone. So let’s refocus our frustrations, and thank God for His wisdom and care for us.

But the sad reality is that we don’t think about that reality very often. We keep ourselves under that loneliness cloud, and we enter some emo-mode that pushes everything and everyone apart. We believe that we are alone, and that we are destined to be alone. We tend to put romantic relationships in a pedestal over every other human relationship, and we don’t even try to consider how life from the other side of my own singleness is.

God shows in the Bible a very particular human relationship: Friendship. What is friendship? According to dictionary.com friendship is a relationship between a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. The Bible shows us specific cases of friendship, like David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, The Lord Jesus and the apostles Peter, James and John and Barnabas and Paul (read about them). These friendships were fueled by the love for God and the common purpose of living for His Glory. God calls us to invest in this kind of relationship, because God sees it valuable too:

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. (Prov. 17:17)

A friend is that person who becomes a brother, when family is far away. A friend is the closest thing to a confessor. A friend is your accountability partner, the person you go in order to keep things in check. A friend is the one who points out your sin, so you can repent from it. A friend is the one who is going to make memes about you to embarrass you in your face, but is the one who is going to be praying all night for you…A friend is the one who knows you dearly, and loves you for who you are.

I want to thank God for my friends. I always considered myself a weirdo, and a man of few friends, but now I realize how many friends, and brothers and sisters I’ve got. I’m blessed knowing that I can count on people. I’m blessed knowing that I can trust people, that I can be myself around those persons. I’ve got people who prays for me, who accepts me even when I’m intense and brutally honest. I’ve got people who have covered my sin, rejoiced with me when I’m rejoicing; cried with me when I’m crying. Those persons have made my singleness almost like no-singleness. They have given my singleness a purpose. They have given my loneliness an outlet. I can say that God have fulfilled His Word of Genesis 2 on me. It is not good that man should be alone, and thanks to those guys and girls all over the world… I know I’m not.

I’m the type of person who thinks that friendships don’t last forever; that friends are meant to go away with time, and only the friendships that stay close to you despite the time-space spectrum are the ones worth investing into. Because of that, choose your friends wisely, and cherish them. Let them know how much you love them, and how thankful you are for them. Pray for them and encourage them in the faith.

They are a mean of sanctification, and a reason for our joy. Here’s to friends!