Lockdown Day 34: THE MATHEMATICS OF FRIENDSHIPS

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What a beautiful prayer of friendship. This is truly my prayer for you.

The most ‘unchristian’ practice which is inevitably enforced during the COVID-19 is not not being able to go to church but the necessary act of “social distancing”. Faith is all about our social capacity. In the words of Christ Himself, true religion lies in loving God and loving our neighbour (Matthew 22:37). Everything else — doing good, knowing good, and speaking good hang on this principle. We can never be authentic followers of Christ outside a community of people. This is non-negotiable.

However, with the exponential growth of social media the challenge in building a wider social capacity lies not in obtaining more friends, but in developing deeper relationships.

Relationships can generally be grouped into four divisions:

• those that subtract,
• those that divide,
• those that add and
• those that multiply.

If we truly seek to develop our social capacity it is wise to attract friendships that add and multiply value to us, and to shun relationships that subtract and divide us. We should avoid those that drain life and seek those that give life.

But it is equally important to pursue relationships where we add and multiply value into the lives of friends without seeking only friendships in which we are the beneficiaries. Capacity building is always a mutual exercise, it should never be only one party that benefits. Faith always inspires faith; courage inspires courage and boldness inspires boldness. As much as we need friends who inspire us, we need to be that friend who inspires others.

To enlarge a social capacity will require that we move back to the old model of friendships where we invest our lives in like-minded people who we trust to be friends such as described in Proverbs:

• Proverbs 12:26 talks about Godly friends
• Proverbs 17:17 talks about loyal friends
• Proverbs 18:24 talks about faithful friends
• Proverbs 20:6 talks about reliable friends
• Proverbs 22:11talks about pure friends
• Proverbs 27:5-6 talks about sincere friends
• Proverbs 27:9 talks about honest friends
• Proverbs 27:17 talks about involved friends

One of the greatest gifts any person can pray for is loyal and faithful friends. Nothing on earth is more precious, more worthwhile investing in, and worthier of keeping. Expanding our social capacity will to a large extent depend on our ability to make true and reliable friends out of acquaintances. It is also true that the quality of friendship one has determines the quality of one’s life (Proverbs 13:20). Jesus grew in favour with God and also with men. In order to have an enhanced social capacity, one must seek true friendship with God and also true friendship with man; one must be a giver and not just a taker; and one must be free of pretense and shallowness.

Thank you for being a friend!