Friendship is a fragile item on life's agenda. It demands a lot of attention to prevent breakage. There is so much to misunderstand and so many wrong ways to interpret actions and words. Friendship can give us much pleasure, but it can also cause much pain. There is a sense in which we make ourselves vulnerable to everyone we consider a friend. Friendship requires us to give a bit of ourselves away. Sometimes the giving is not reciprocated. Mutual investment of time and energy is what makes some people friends while others are only casual acquaintances. Yet, people who keep score are often disappointed when their expectations are not fulfilled. A truth to remember is that we can only have so many "best friends." Sometimes we overload ourselves with more "best friends" than we have time and energy to maintain.

There are several things which hinder thriving friendships. For example jealousy and envy can create tension for friends who compete for attention, accomplishments, and accumulation of things. When greed is a goal it is hard to meet the sacrificial demands of friendship. Nothing damages our ability to relate to others more than an attitude which is haughty and proud. We all tend to gravitate to people who are humble and kind. We enjoy being around folk with whom we can be ourselves. Having to pretend and exaggerate our importance is not a comfortable setting for friendship. Friendship thrives when we can celebrate each other's good fortune.

Another enemy of friendship is disloyalty. Nothing is more painful than the knowledge that someone has shared our confidences. It hurts when people gush over us in public and stab us in the back in private. We seldom recover a friendship where disloyalty prevails. How beautiful are the people we can count on to be our friends through life's stormy details. Let us never underestimate the value of being loyal because it often begets loyalty in return.

Jesus gave us a great principle for friendship when He said of Himself, "greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend." The truth here is that in every serious friendship we lay down some of our life. We give up something for the good of another. We deny ourselves and take up the personal cross of friendship as we follow our Lord's admonition to lose our lives in order to find them. It might be said another way. We lose ourselves for another in order to find someone who will do the same for us. He or she who would have friends must accept the sacrificial demands of friendship.