Who is your friend? Can you look at the person you are with and call them your friend? Friends as defined by my beautiful dictionary, is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations. In a Christian context, who is your friend? This is not limited to a male-female relationship, but friendship without strings attached. How would we define friendship in a Godly way?

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,⁴ because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— ⁵ the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel⁶ that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

These verses in Colossians have been speaking to me for a few days, and I thank God for the Holy Spirit. When it convicts you to do something, don’t say later. Do it the moment it prompts you. I had been listening to a sermon on Youtube about Godly Frienships, because I wanted to understand how I could be a better friend to my friends. I wanted to live, worship and praise God together with them, no matter the gender. As I was listening to the message, the preacher highlighted a number of things which we often overlook. In Godly friendships,

1. Friends put God above all other relationships. This means that friends are able to say NO to their friends if they believe that something is wrong and not right in the eyes of God, hence they shall not part-take, even if it means loosing a good friend.

2. Friends create Spiritual Conversations: How does one create a spiritual conversation? I have found it easy to come up with a story that happened and explain how God helped me look at the situation. You just need to start talking and see where the Holy Spirit leads you.

3. Pray for your friends: Do you miss your friends? Are you waiting for them to call you up, send you a message because you have done it way too many times? Don’t wait around for them, call them up because you miss them and pray for them. The time I had come across this third area, I was going through an emotional melt down against one of my friends. When I came across this point, I had to run to God, and pray for my friend. Later, I was able to tell them how sorry I had been for being angry at them. I should have understood their situation. God had prepared my heart as I prayed and asked for forgiveness.

4. Friends are grace givers: Friends forgive anyone who offends them. Are you able to forgive your friends? I often look at forgiveness in terms of God’s grace in our lives. We do not forgive because we are nice people, kind and compassionate, but we forgive because Jesus forgave us on the cross.

We most often misinterpret friendship with relationships. There’s a difference in being in a friendship with an opposite gender, and being in a relationship with them. Being in a friendship to me means, there’s no romanticism in that friendship, but mutual understanding, appreciation and fun. We can also argue that two people of the opposite gender cannot spend too much time together and not have feelings for each other. This argument would definitely be valid. However, Not all friendships are based on romantic feelings. Of course, one person might feel like they wish there was more, but I would advise you ladies especially. If you like a guy and he shows indifference in how he treats you, although he might be very gentlemanly, do not possess him as if he was already yours. He is not. He is just probably being a brother to you.

Again, men, do not send the wrong vibes (messages) to a woman if you know she might read what you are not ready to offer. Make it clear-cut what your intentions are so that she is able to know her stance with you in that friendship (yawning big. Need to sleep). Come to a mutual understanding of where you both lie. Will you get hurt if that man ask a different woman out and not you? Will you get mad if that young woman goes out with a different man and not you? These are some of the questions you need to establish within your friendships, so that no body is hurt at the end. These are all words of wisdom gathered from my friends.

Friends are meant to be there for you, building you up spiritually, because they know you are also there for them. They are there to pray for you like Paul says in the verses above. I always thank my God for all of you because of your faith. Friends are able to remember their friends and the works God is doing in them, and thank God for that work. This is because they know that the work will produce more fruits and shade light in the darkness.

Just because a guy ask you if you want to hangout over some coffee and hot chocolate, does not mean, they are asking you to marry them. Even if they happen to ask you out on a date, it does not mean you should set the wedding day. They are merely wanting to know you and spend some time with you because they are your friend and you probably haven’t seen them. They might also just want to have a conversation about your life or about something they would like to share with you. These are things we often overlook in our friendships. Building Godly friendships actually enables you as an individual to reflect on who you are to your friends. Do you want something from them, or you can be their friends without being in a relationship. I would love to write more, but my eyes are not listening to me right now. Hopefully I made some sense out there.