Friendship

Friendship. Time to see what’s real and what’s counterfeit.

Proverbs 27:6- Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.

I remember a day when a man who is one of my best friends warned me what he was about to do. He asked me, “Do you trust me? Do you trust that I love you?” I replied yes. He said to me, “I am about to wound you, because I have to wound you in order for you to be healed.” It seems backwards to us, especially in times of acute pain and emotional suffering, to think of being willing to allow those nearest to us to do speak into such pain with words of rebuke and challenge, rather than words of comfort. Although I am a firm believer of comforting first from the comfort that we ourselves have received (2 Corinthians 1), there are times when what the Lord calls you to do for the sake of your friendship and your healing, is to be willing to say or receive the words that wound, the words that can lead to true peace and rest.

Like a doctor with surgical precision who cuts away the infected tissue, is the friend whose tongue speaks words of rebuke under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Although there is pain in the moment, the healing that is afforded by the surgery is far greater than what could be accomplished without.