\u201cOne with many friends may be harmed, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.\u201d Proverbs 18:24
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There seems to be this false belief in our culture that we have to have a lot of friends. But that isn\u2019t true, we have to the right friends. The friends that will be there for you in the middle of the night. It\u2019s the small group of people in your life that know you best. The people who invest in you and you in them. If you don\u2019t have a small group, you need one. A great place to find one is your local church.
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Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, lost his youngest son to suicide five days after Easter in 2015. In a poignant article titled \u201cMy Son\u2019s Suicide and God\u2019s Garden of Grace\u201d he describes the days leading up to the event, the event itself and the aftermath. It struck me that within 30 minutes of discovering what had happened his small group were there with him and his wife. They spent the night with them at their house. He said, \u201cThe deeper the pain, the fewer words needed.\u201d His small group knew that truth, they didn\u2019t come with words, they came with hugs and companionship. That is the type of friendships we need to develop in our lives.
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Dark days will come for all of us, God tells us this in His word: \u201cI have told you these things so you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world\u201d (John 16:33 NIV). I wish this wasn\u2019t a truth of life, but it is. The choice is who you will have to help you through them.
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Rick Warren knew who sticks closer than a brother. It\u2019s Jesus. He goes on to tell in the article how he took a four month grief sabbatical. During that time, he spent it with Jesus. His words describe that period of time best:
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\u201cYou can\u2019t spend four months alone in reflection, in the Bible, with scripture and with Jesus and it not change you, deepen you and sensitise you to the pain of other people.\u201d
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If we are to find purpose in our pain, we need Jesus to show us the way. He gives us friends here on earth to help us through the dark days. He is the one whose opinion we should seek over all others. He sticks closer than a brother
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\u201cOne with many friends may be harmed, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.\u201d Proverbs 18:24 There seems to be this false belief in our culture that we have to have a lot of friends. But that isn\u2019t true, we have to the right friends. The friends that will be there… Continue reading INVEST IN THE ONES WHO STAY CLOSE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}