The past few days I have been
reading in the book of Ecclesiastes for my Bible study time in the
mornings. Yesterday, I came across a
quite familiar passage, but a powerful one nonetheless:
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, ESV
Most people would say they have
a best friend, and some are even gifted with more than one. This kind of friend will stick with you when
you’re going through a hard time and will listen to anything you need to
say. Understandably, a friend like this
is hard to find! Perhaps you have a
friend whom you've known since your childhood. I've known my best friend for almost all of
my life. In fact, I don’t remember a
time when I didn’t know him! Going to
the same church and being close in age, we hang out together all the time. More recently, we’ve even started doing skits
at our church every so often that we’ve seen from the Skit Guys. (If you haven’t seen the Skit Guys, you
should really check them out!) Over the
years, we’ve made fun of each other and laughed like crazy, but we’ve also
talked about the things that really matter to us. We’ve talked about scripture, what we’ve
learned at church, and even how we can learn better.
Our pastor has even called us “David and Jonathan” because of how great
of friends we are. No matter who you
are, I believe you need a friend who you can talk to about anything.
There are also some of us who
have more than one great friend. That’s
where the last part of Ecclesiastes 4:12 comes in: “a threefold cord is not
quickly broken”. Have you ever tried to
tear apart a string? Alone, it can be
fairly easy. If you braid
three strings together, however, it’s much more difficult. If you’re so daring as to braid four strings,
it becomes even more difficult! In other words, the more the merrier! The body of Christ was meant to be like this. In their
book, “Do Hard Things” (One of my favorite books of all time) Alex and Brett Harris
give the example of horses to demonstrate the importance of companionship. Alone, a horse can pull 2,500 pounds. So if you put two horses together they can
pull twice that, right? Wrong! That’s what’s so cool about friendship! If you put two horses together, then can pull
not five thousand, not ten thousand, but over twelve thousand pounds!!! Best friends are extremely important to
have. We weren’t made to follow Christ
on our own.
Do you have a best friend? How
have they helped you? Leave a comment
below about your friendship!