September 23, 2018
It is hard to make truly good friends. It can be hard to make new friends. But Teri Leinbaugh tells about her seven year old son who, when they moved int a new home, made some fast friends. An hour after leaving on a tour of the neighborhood, he was back proclaiming that he had made two new friends.
Mom asked, “Are they boys or girls?”
“One is a boy and one is a girl.”
“That's great,” Mom told him. “How old are they?”
“Mom,” he replied, “that would be very rude to ask.”
That seemed odd to her, that a 7 year old would respond this way. But an hour later, he was back. “Mom,” he yelled, “I found out how old my new friends are. The girl is sixty-five and the boy is seventy.”
It is good that he didn't have an age limit on friendship. He seemed to have a handle on being a friend. As I was doing research for today's sermon on being a good friend, I googled friendship. I found list after list giving descriptions of what being a good friend looks like; the 7 qualities of a good friend, 25 ways to be a good friend, 11 signs of a genuine friendship, 10 tips on being a good friend, the 13 Essential Friendship Traits. And I wondered how to select the list that fits best with what we are doing with our Jacob's 11 list.