A Recipe For Friendship

What determines friendship? What ingredients are necessary for a true friendship to hold forth? Is it someone who calls you on the phone a few times a week? Or someone who goes for morning runs with you? How about someone you share a meal with once a week or go to church with on Sundays? Is it someone who listens to you, cries with you, laughs with you?
Or is it someone who goes shopping with you on Saturdays?
I have “friends” I do all of the above with – except the shopping as I’m not much of a shopper. BUT, are these things what determine a recipe for friendship? Are they what bind a friendship into solidity? Yes and no. Yes, they are partial ingredients but they are not the “glue” that hold a friendship through the years. The glue through the years of gladness and joy but also sadness and pain.
The main ingredient that will bind a friendship not only through this life, but also throughout eternity is Jesus. The Bible tells us “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). Who would stick closer than a brother or sister? Jesus, of course! He transcends even our earthly family relationships. As Stephen F. Olford wrote in his book, “Windows of Wisdom”, “it is the union and communion that is found and forged in Jesus Christ….through faith in Him……There is no friendship like Christian friendship!”
As my years grow, I have come to realize that deepest friendships have happened in the shortest amount of time when the main ingredient has been Jesus.
My husband is my truest and closet friend; forged forever throughout eternity on the blood of Jesus Christ.
A friend I hold so close and dear in my heart now and forever, is someone I’ve never even partaken a meal with but our bond through Jesus draws us nigh unto each other as we’re drawn nigh unto Him. At times I feel our hearts beat as one because we know our God and His place is our center. We have traveled the rough seas of envy, competitiveness, and immense lifestyle differences to a calm placid lake of friendship together forging forever our love for one another. Only by the mutual love of Jesus would this have been possible. He is and always will be the binding ingredient for true friendship.
The recipe then is this:
Several cups of listening
A cup of sharing
A couple tablespoons each of kindness, laughter, hugs
Sprinkle in some disagreements (they grow you), crying, and hardships
Sweeten all to taste with smiles, giggles, and whispers
Mix all together and bind with Jesus
Bake until your memories turn golden
Share with all who will have the same – true friendship.
As Rick Warren, author of “A Purpose Driven Life”, wrote “Life is all about love” and that is also the basis for friendship.

Beauty shines forth in the poem of her heart:
“Sister woman,
Hold thy heart! Where laughter dwells, there, the peace of God lives. To
worship rightly is to love one another. Her smile a hymn and her kind deed a
prayer--it dropeth as gentle rain from heaven, and it is twice blessed--she
who gives and she who takes.
I send you a smile for treasured times spent. Smiles of friendship and sisterly love are a delight.”