QUESTION OF THE DAY #15: What is one thing you look for in a friend?

As I was visiting people in the hospital today, wearing my clerical collar as Lutheran pastors sometimes do, I was greeted by a man who said, "Hi, Father! What's the good word?"  I should have told him I wasn't a priest, I know, but we were walking out the door and had places to go, so I just told him about the forest fires burning in Minnesota that were affecting the air quality here in Wisconsin.

I know what you're thinking, it would have been easier just to tell him I was a pastor, but hindsight is 20/20.  I really don't think he was expecting the answer I gave.  It wasn't something he wanted to hear, but he had been wondering about that smell, and it's good to know not to go out and exercise if the air quality is bad.  Certainly, we keep that forest fire and others around the world in our prayers as well.

In a small, small way, that relates to this question.  Although there are many qualities important to friendship, such as honesty, loyalty, empathy, a sense of humor, and so on, one truth that often gets overlooked is that a good friend will disagree sometimes.  They will hold us accountable.  They will tell us when we mess up, or when we're about to, but through it all they will be there for us, not because they have to be, but because they choose to be, and because God has brought them into our life.  It is a mutual thing, a pairing of equals, a sign of respect.  

I really don't know if we choose our friends because they have one quality or another.  Very often they are what the Bible calls our "neighbors," the people we come into contact with in our lives.  But this much I know, that a friendship where both people make each other better is something truly to be sought and cherished.  "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17) 

What is one thing that you look for in a friend?  In what ways do your friends make you better, and how can you do the same for them?