Friends, Associates, Etc.

I have been to more funerals as a child than most people go to all of their lives. I am a preacher's kid, an incurable daddy's boy, and a boy preacher. So, I wanted to be wherever my dad was. Consequently, I went to a lot of funerals with him. I remember sitting in the minister's room in the funeral homes, waiting for the service to begin. My dad and I would be reading through the program. He would start from the beginning; I would start at the end, the obituary. I would jump to the bottom of it, to see if a certain line was there. If it was, I braced myself. I knew that a lecture was soon to come. The line that would set my father off was, "And he leaves to cherish his memories... And a host of friends." My dad would get to upset by the line. He would say, "Son, that's a lie. Friends don't come in hosts. If you can get to the end of your life and count on one hand your true friends, you're blessed."

The older I get (and I hope the more mature I am becoming), the more I agree with my dad on this. Friends don't come in hosts. Friends are much more rare and precious commodities. And I am beginning to wonder a lot about this matter of friendship? How many people I call friends are true friends. Conversely, am I a true friend to those who call me their friend? What are the marks of a true friend? What should we call the superficial relationships we have that we often mistakenly call friendships? Is it right to call them "associates"? Isn't that too business-like of a term? Is it wise to consider people who do not have a positive influence on you as friends? What about people you don't talk to that often? Or, what about people who you talk to often, but about nothing of any significance? How long should you know a person, and how much should you know about them, before you call them your friend? How close of a friendship should Christians have with non-Christians? How close of a friendship can devoted followers of Christ have with unbelievers? What do you think?