Proverbs Devotion - Day 17

As I was reading chapter 17 there were several verses and topics that the Lord brought to light and that I considered writing about for today’s devotion. There is of course the issue of finding peace in the Lord rather than the abundance of riches. There are warnings about guarding our speech. There is the call to examine the motivations of one’s heart. Yet, what the Lord really put on me to write about today is the topic of friendship. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (17:17). It is perhaps one of the great ironies of living in the 21st century that people are more connected than at any other point in history, and yet friendships of the caliber described in this verse are so rare.

“A friend loves at all times…” Friendship is something that is deep and abiding. True friendship involves a transparency where another person sees us at our best and our worst. Obviously, this is something that is true in a relationship with one’s spouse, but this is something that is more universal. Not everyone is called to marriage, but everyone needs the intimacy and closeness of friendship. This is due to the fact that we are created in the image of God. We were made for community. Even people like me who enjoy our time alone. We have a built-in need for community with others. God puts this in us because He is eternally existent in the perfect communion of three co-equal persons (the Trinity). We long to feel and to experience something of that intimacy that God has within the persons of the Godhead and true friendship is something that helps to meet this need.

The second half of the verse mirrors the first half saying, “…and a brother is born for adversity.” The love of friendship is exemplified in the familial-like bond that it produces. A true friend is like a brother who walks with us through our deepest struggles. Adversity comes for us all. Often times when we least expect it. Yet, we are blessed when we have a faithful friend who walks through it with us.

There are many different examples of friendship in the Scripture. Perhaps the most famous is the friendship of Jonathan and David. Hopefully, you have at least one person in your life that is described by this verse. Yet, even if you do, the reality is that no human friendship is perfect. Many people live in a constant state of worry about what will happen if my friend ever found out about this? What would they think of me? Would they still love me? We feel like there is something that we have to provide in order to make a friendship, or relationship of any type, to be sustainable. Yet, there is one relationship where this is not the case. That is the friendship we have with Jesus. Of course, Jesus is far more to us than just a friend. He is our Savior, our Lord, our Provider, our Sustainer, our Creator, our Joy, our Peace. Yet, he is not less than our friend (John 15:13-15). His love for us is not grounded in who we are but in who he is. As a result, we can be confident that Jesus is the one friend who will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He is the brother who is with us in every adversity, having promised never to leave us or forsake us. Even when other people may let us down or disappoint us, Jesus remains perfect, and the embodiment of what friendship truly means.

The question that I would like to ask everyone to ponder today is not whether you have any true friends who embody 17:17. My question for us is whether we are properly devoted to the one friend who already embodies this verse (Jesus)? Are we thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ, who chooses to call his people “friend?” I would like to close today with a quote from C.H. Spurgeon from his sermon entitled “An Unrivaled Friend.” “The love of man to man is sustained by something drawn from the object of love, but the Love of Christ to us has its deep springs within Himself. ... If it had to subsist upon us, and what we do, and what we merit, ah, it would always be at the lowest conceivable ebb! But since it leaps up from the great deep of the Divine Heart, it never changes, and by His Grace, it never shall!"