Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/83

Contributor - Annette Curry

Title - Be A Friend

Topic - Youth

There is a coffee house in suburban San Francisco where, for $5.00 per half hour (1975 prices), a person will listen to you. No advice, just listening; a live person with genuine interest in your money and artificial interest in you, will sit with you and listen to you talk. Business is booming because people are hurting, few seem to care and artificial interest is better than no interest at all.

Telephone crisis lines receive many calls from lonely, hurting people who just need to talk. In today's rushed, hurried world a friend is just about the best thing one can have. We need to be able to share our joys, our sorrows, our ups and our downs with someone. But a friendship is a two way street. To have a good friend means being a good friend, and there are many skills involved in being a good friend. Being a friend can also be the best Christian witness you can possibly have. By showing you care and are concerned, you are showing Christ to others.

What then is involved in being a friend? Offering true friendship to someone is an unselfish act. It is not done for personal gain, although the lasting benefits of a friendship far outweigh the emotional involvement or possible hurt involved.

As I see it, two things are major in a friendship or in being a friend: time and communication. It takes time to be a friend. And in our busy, rushed, "me " world, it is important that you make time to talk to and be with others. It's taking the extra few minutes to talk on the phone when you would rather be eating or studying. It's spending time over a coffee or pop to try to understand what the other person is feeling. It's going out of your way to help someone, or even neglecting yourself to lend a hand.

Being a friend involves communication - not just talk. You have to listen attentively and concentrate on the other person and his feelings, rather than on your own reply. It should end up by making the other person happy that he's had a chance to talk with you. In a friendship this is a two-way street. When a friend realizes you are genuinely interested in him, he begins to trust you. When this goes both ways, a friendship is formed.

However, we must be a friend even if it doesn't lead to friendship. Show interest in others from the clerk in the store to the person next door. From the kid down the street to the elderly lady whom you meet in the park. Take time to talk to them, but especially to listen. Don't listen with the idea that you have all the answers. Usually a person, especially a stranger or mere acquaintance, is not looking for advice; but talking to someone helps him discover his own answers.

In the February 1983 issue of Reader's Digest, an article is devoted to Loneliness. Many people are lonely, whether they are surrounded by people or keep to themselves. Some lonely people, such as John Hinckley, Jr. go to great lengths to get attention. In love with a movie actress, he shot the U.S. President just to get her attention. There are also connections between lack of human companionship and heart diseases. Teenage suicide and teenage pregnancy have also been related to loneliness.

Can you imagine how much better this world would be if all who claimed to be Christians showed Christ's love by being a friend? Let us try to carry out Christ's command to "love one another" by being a friend.

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