“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

We all have unreliable acquaintances. But an unreliable friend—that’s painful. I’m sure all of us have experienced that at some point in our lifetime. Nevertheless, it is still a hard and sad thing to discover that a friend, or at least someone we perceived to be a friend, betrays us or simply walks away from us in hard times. If we have one friend who will always stand with us through thick and thin, we are incredibly blessed these days. If we have two, it’s amazing. I consider myself overwhelmingly rich in that I have no fewer than six to ten of those kinds of friends in my life. When I was 16 years old, my best friend at the time almost got us killed with some typical 16-year-old driving-on-bald-tires behavior. It was a close call. I had an instant reaction and realized that I was about to throw myself in front of him to protect him. It was in that moment that I realized I would willingly give my life for him. That was the first time I realized I would die for another person. It changed me. I began to take stock of the people on my journey for whom I would die. That’s an amazing exercise. Even more amazing is when we come to realize that while we were still living lives of sin, Jesus chose to die freely for us. My mom used to say, “If you want a friend, be a friend.” Pretty good counsel. Today, cherish the friends you have and look for those who need your friendship. #BeTheEdge

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” —Jesus