'The best definition of a friend

The best definition of a friend

A prize was offered for the best definition of a friend . Many people competed — but the definition which was adjudged the best and to which the prize was awarded was, "A friend is the first person who comes in, when the whole world has gone out." Some of us know the truth of this definition by experience.

There was a time when we needed a friend and one by one our acquaintances and those who called us friend, passed by and passed on and away — cold, unsympathetic, unheeding, leaving us to struggle along with our burden, our need, or our responsibility. Then when all had gone out, there came one — cheerful, brave, strong, unselfish, speaking the word or doing the deed which brought us relief, so that we could go on our way without failing.

It is such a friend that Christ is to us — when all the world has gone out and no one is ready to help — He comes in. When all human friends have failed us — He stands beside us, strong and faithful.

Human love may be true — but at best its power is limited. It can go only one short mile with us, and then must fall behind, leaving us to go on alone. It has no wisdom to help beyond the merest borders of experience. We are powerless in the presence of any great human need.

True friendship can do much. One wrote that he had never crossed his friend's threshold with a grief, but that he went away without it; had never come hungry hearted, without being fed and having his sorrow comforted. Never had the friend's door been closed to him for even one little day. Yet there came a day when even that door was closed, when that friendship gave no help, no response, no consolation, no comfort.

Human friendship is wondrously sweet, yet there come experiences when the truest, strongest human friend can do nothing. But when all the world has gone out — Christ will come in. He is an unfailing, an eternal Friend.

"There is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24

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