I’m thinking about friendship this morning.
The Recipe
What makes a good and lasting friendship? What’s the recipe? Here’s some ingredients:
- Things in common
- Shared experiences
- Compatibility
- Similar interests
- Mutual trust and respect
And?
There’s something to be said about liking each other; it’s a key factor in forming a friendship. What is it we like?
- Talking
- Laughing
- Adventure
- Values
- Perspective
The Odd Couple
However, I have close friends who are different, or I’m different from them.
I have a close friend who loves to hunt, loves everything about it, and is good at it. Me? I don’t hunt, don’t care for it, and don’t want to kill anything. But we are great friends. Go figure?
Another close friend is a thrill seeker. Loves adventure and excitement. Loves to jet ski, ride horses, and is up for anything interesting or exciting. Loves to be outside gardening, doing yard work, and getting sweaty and dirty, and yet is fastidious about being neat and clean. I don’t like any of those things.
Another great friend is a world class fly fisherman who lives on a world-class fly fishing river. But he rarely fly-fishes. His summers are spent helping and serving others. He’s a Pastor in a small mountain community and he invests all his time caring for his flock. I admire him. But I would want to fish more!
One of my closest friends is way smarter than me. By smarter I mean, higher I.Q., quicker mind, faster conceptually, gets the point before I do. Why we are friends I’ll never know. It’s hard for me to keep up and hard for my friend to wait for me. Anyway, we get along.
To Close
Frankly, I don’t get the friendship recipe, but I know a good friend is a wonderful thing.
To my friends, thanks for being my friend. We don’t always understand each other, and we have some differences, but somehow, someway, we keep growing closer.
Thank you.
