The Best Friend

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, -a possession for all time. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson (Friendship 1841)

 "I chide society, I embrace solitude..." That is so me. Yet, am I so ungrateful as not to see those who "pass my gate?" I seek that friend "who hears me" and "understands me" while at the same time, I tend to run or hide away. Perhaps I do not even deserve such friendship.

Over the years there have been some that have come close to understanding the real me, yet only one has ever truly heard me, understood me and chose to stay. When I have moments of loneliness, whether real or imagined, I can go to him and he's always there.

Below are some excerpts from C.H. Spurgeon's sermon       "The Best Friend." 

"True friends are very scarce. We have a great many acquaintances and sometimes we call them friends, and so misuse the noble word “friendship.” Peradventure in some after-day of adversity when these so-called friends have looked out for their own interests and left us to do the best we can for ourselves, that word friendship may come back to us with sad and sorrowful associations."

"The friend in need is the friend indeed, and such friends I say again, are scarce. When thou hast found such a man, and proved the sincerity of his friendship; when he has been faithful to thy father and to thee, grapple him to thyself with hooks of steel and never let him go...."

"It is no friendship that flatters; it is small friendship that holds its tongue when it ought to speak; but it is true friendship that can speak at the right time and if need be even speak so sharply as to cause a wound."

"...there is a Friend who is the chief and highest of all friends... He is a true and real Friend... there is no friend to whom we ought to be so intensely attached as to him..."

Friend of sinners, is his name.

And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time. ~Jesus