Quit Expecting Perfect From Your Friends…

If you have found a friend, a true friend, you have found a gift of immeasurable value. There are seasonal friends, but then there are friends that remain present in your life. In every season of life, you find this person there, steadfast in their presence. They celebrate with you and you celebrate with them in life’s victories and blessing. They are there for you and you are there for them in times of difficulty with a listening ear, a warm hug, words of comfort, and a shoulder to cry on. This friend just “gets you,” sees you as you are, and loves you anyway. This friend is the person you never have to wonder what they may be secretly thinking about you because your relationship is so transparent that you already know. This type of friendship is a rare gift, and you know once you’ve found it. Although this friendship is rare, it is a friendship that is available to all.
Some believe that you can go a lifetime and never discover that lifelong friendship, but I am happy to share with you that is far from being true. Jesus tells us Himself in John 15:14-16, “You are my friends if you do what I command. 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. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
Jesus was a man who was acquainted with grief, a man of sorrows, despised, and rejected (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus wept and He prayed earnestly! Although He faced great temptation, never once did He cave. He is that friend that first loved us before we could ever love Him. He came without condemnation, because on our own we were already standing condemned, but rather He came to lift the weight of sin and remove the separation between God and man. His life was a total offering for you and me! Not only just an offering, but He allowed Himself to have the life experiences to know and feel the things that we know and feel daily.
What better friend could you ask for? A friend who loved first? A friend who came without condemnation? A friend who knows grief? A friend who knows rejection? A friend that always welcomes you? A friend who lays down their life for you? A friend who always understands what you are going through? A friend who makes themselves transparently known to you? Can you find a better friend than Jesus? Can you find another who has done all of these things without fail?
We long for a friend who knows and understands the pressures and hardships that we face in life. We long for a friend who will celebrate with us and mourn with us. We long for that friend who accepts us as we are and loves us despite our flaws. We long for that friend that we can fully trust with our deepest thoughts and feelings. We long for a friend who is so transparent that you never have to wonder what they are thinking because you just know.
Have you found that friend yet? It is a friend that can be found. The true longing for that kind of friendship seems too good to be true, and honestly, unrealistic. Although I have been gifted with wonderful friends, that’s a tall order to fill, and I am afraid that it’s one that I myself can never fill for another. That longing in our hearts for a friendship like that is purposeful though, but its purpose is not to place those expectations on the people God has placed in our lives. That kind of pressure to place on someone would be unfair. The longing exists so that we can fill it with Jesus because only He can be all those things for us perfectly, all the time!
If you find yourself striving to find that perfect friendship or even be that perfect friend for another, stop putting that kind of pressure on them and yourself. Jesus longs to fill that role that was meant for only Him to fulfill! Let Him be that friend for you that will always stay by your side and stick closer to you than a brother! What a friend we have in Jesus!