Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday April 30, 2008

I am thankful for the amazing response to Tuesday's letter on friendship and the benefits thereof. To have a friend in the true sense is a rare gift. When you get a little grey around the ears, you know or at least you should know, just how priceless is the true friend.

Henry David Thoreau wrote concerning this and his words catch you at a glance and then they seem to unfold with a deeper meaning as you muse. Take this one for instance:

"The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language."

Most of us are familiar with the "words" of friendship, but how many of us really grasp the full meaning of the word and the idea of friendship. One of the cruelest betrayals in the annals of history is the one by Judas Iscariot of Jesus, with perhaps the betrayal of you by one of your close friends and confidants. In my calling we deal with spousal betrayal so often that we forget to the unspeakable pain even torment visited upon the one betrayed. Why is this?

Simply put, you have to care for the person who betrays you or it really doesn't matter. Business associates betray each other on a daily basis in order to gain another customer. People in your organization will sell the business secrets for a song and think nothing of it. It is considered the cost of doing business by mature experienced people. But our spouse, our offspring, well they come under a different set of expectations, and the assumption of mutual love and respect is the underpinning of all such relationships. When this assumption of trust, of love is violated, our world suffers a deep inner loss that is beyond mere words to explain or the emotional/mental capacity to fully grasp.

True friendship, as with true love is above language and moves into to the relatively unexplored level of another sense above and beyond the five we think we understand. Often the deepest love is expressed with a glance which no words could improve. The Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostle Paul having searched the sum total of the tongues of the human race finally described God's gift to us in Christ as an "unspeakable gift." Ten thousand tongues each speaking ten thousand languages could not define the love of God. That friendship and love are on the same wave length is undeniable. Search as you will and you cannot find a true love that is not also a bona fide friendship. And a true friendship will have many of the same qualities, yet will always forgo the intimate part reserved for marriage.

I long ago decided to exchange the see how much you can talk without saying anything meaningful, for the kind of friendship that can not only endure times of no conversation, but actually enjoy them. True friends do not have to make noise to enjoy the company of each other.

The shrill noise of our generation bears forceful witness to our lack of the kind of friendships Thoreau alluded to, and thus the forlorn loneliness our people often talk about in the few serious moments. I am thankful for a true friend like Jesus and that a few of His friends are also mine.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with Credit.

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