Friends. Understanding from Luke 22

Friendship. This has been on my mind for a while. I would like to think it has been just in the past few weeks but as I really start to delve into this "delicate" subject, I think it has always been on my mind.

The past few months I have been able to have a few conversations with a few people. And the topic has come up about friendships. I have been thinking about friends and decided to Google quotes and this one came up.

"A faithful friend is the medicine of life." 

            --- Apocrypha

I am not even going to ask if you agree because I know that you do. In light of my 10 year high school reunion  being in a few short weeks, I reflected back upon those people in my life who I have called as friends. I think about the people in my life right now that I consider to be my friends. And I think about how I have very few friends that I have known for 10 years that I still keep in close contact with. To be exact, the number is somewhere between 3 and 5.  I do have one special friend I have known since nursery. Our daughters are just weeks apart. 

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I have a handful of friends that I can call or email and we pick up where we left off... mostly ones from college and my mission. 

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And I have my circle of eternal friends also called family that, no matter how rude or tactless I can be, still love me.  

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While conversing these past few weeks, months, years etc, one common thread in these people that I have noticed is that they are excellent friends. What makes an excellent friend? I think you know. I started to think more about this and had an experience I wanted to share

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Luke 22

44 And being in an ^aagony he prayed more earnestly: ^band his sweat was as it were great drops of ^cblood falling down to the ground.

45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,

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This is in Luke in the New Testament. It is regarding Christ's intense agony as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. And it is a part I have often simply skipped over and never really took time to understand. (these two verses, not the Garden of Gethsemane).

I try to make sure I react to situations as my Savior would. That I am calm, collective, and look at the situation from all angles or as "Leadership and Self-deception" would coin "thinking out of the box". Am I the only person that does this? Sometimes it is annoying to some since this causes me to defend "the other person" rather than be faithful/loyal. 

The bottom line:

Christ asked one thing from His disciples. That they stay awake and pray. Perhaps He just needed to know that He had friends. It had been such a long day for everyone and surely they tried to stay awake. I know that I would not have been able to. Yet He asked one thing of them. And they were not able to do it. 

Now, rather than be upset, (that is what I would have done), He said "46 And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation". That was it. And then He moved on. 

From this I learn two things, maybe three.

1. Christ, the Savior of the World, needed friends. His own disciples were of difference socio-economic backgrounds and of different professions. Lesson: Friends in un-likely places {some of my favorite people have grandkids my age!}

2. Even when they failed to stay awake (substitute: remember your birthday, send a thank you note, or said/did something hurtful), He still loved them and still walked with them. Lesson: Do not judge and do not hold grudges. We are commanded to forgive. NO. MATTER. WHAT.

3. Prayer. He asked them to pray. I wonder what would have happened if they did. What was waiting for them? What could they have learned? Lesson: What lessons/insight could be mine as I pray? As I am good friend? As I seek to serve others and love others?

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I am not as good of friend as I should be. I can be better. And hopefully, like me, if this is an area where you can improve on as well, we will be able to accomplish this together. I know there are a few people that I should express my gratitude for their friendship. Starting with the one I married and the one I gave birth to.