Sticky Friends

Not stinky. Read it again slower.

Question.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Is it good to have a lot of friends?

Most of us would say, “Sure,” but the following proverb adds a caution.

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A man of many companions may come to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 (ESV).

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When we were young, we just want to be liked, and the more people who liked us, the more significant we thought we were.

With age should come experience that hopefully has forced us to reconsider if popularity is such a good thing after all.

Photo by Jordon Conner on Unsplash

Now I am not the first to state that social media is a two-edged sword. It enables us to find people with common interests around the globe, but it also sucks us into an illusion that causes many to believe they have lots of friends.

Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

Now, more than ever, it is important to be grounded in reality and the importance of having strong friendships where we live. These are human beings living life around us, people we could go and see today if we needed to.

When thinking economics, many financial advisors recommend an emergency fund. This is money set aside to be used only at times of real emergency. We should think in similar ways about certain critical relationships.

Who are those in our lives we could call any time day or night and they would respond in positive ways?

And the reverse must also be true. Who are those around us we will drop whatever we are doing to help should they need it?

All of us need sticky friends, those who stick closer than brothers and sisters — the ones with refrigerator privileges. These are people who can walk into your house and go straight to the fridge for a snack.

Now, having said this, I don’t know how we find these people. Do you?

My unproveable belief is that we are set near these people by God. They may not be anything like us, and at first, we may not be attracted to them at all, and yet there is something fascinating about how we and they interact. I’m not talking romantic love here. I am talking about a friendship that is closer than a brother or sister. It forms. It grows. And it exists for as long as we can see them often. When people move, then this process has to shift. It doesn’t lessen the importance of those we are no longer living near. We can always remain in one another’s hearts, but still, there needs to be that one or few who stick closer than family because they happen to live closer to us than perhaps our family members do.

One final thought.

No one replaces another. That sticky friend in the past need not look or behave in any way similar to those sticky characters in our lives today. This is just one of those mysterious ways that God moves in our lives to keep us on our toes.