Friendship – Proverbs 17:17

“But, would you ever think that an award-winning playwright and a professional wrestler would hang out together? How about a porn magazine editor and a televangelist? Or a Jewish American soldier and a Nazi pilot?” That’s how Katherine Ripley starts her article on 13 Extremely Unexpected Friendships Between Historical Figures.  She chronicles the friendship between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe, Ulysses Grant and James Longstreet, Samuel Beckett and Andre the Giant, and Max Gendelman and Karl Kirschner, among others.  One she doesn’t mention that changed the course of World War II was that between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, one that truly illustrates Proverbs 17:17.  Some more recent unexpected friendships can be found here.

A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for adversity. (Proverbs 17:17, ESV)

Is it tempting to face trouble on your own?  It wasn’t meant to be that way.  God said of Adam that it wasn’t good for the man to be alone and that He would make a helper suitable for him (Genesis 2:18).  God is our help (Psalm 70:5), but He also made our fellow men to be our help.

We need friends and brothers/sisters who are there with us in adversity as well as the good times.  How do we get such friends?  By being that kind of friend ourselves.

Someone has said, “When you stop spending time with real friends, you lose your balance.”