On Second Thought
“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you… I have called you friends.”
John 15:12–15
“A man who has friends must himself be friendly,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
Proverbs 18:24
Most of us can recall a childhood friendship marked by loyalty that felt effortless. That friend knew our habits, our hiding places, and our fears. We learned early that friendship is forged not only through shared laughter, but through shared trouble. Even then, something within us sensed that friendship carried weight—that being truly known and not abandoned was one of life’s greatest gifts. As we age, those friendships often thin out. Responsibilities multiply, expectations collide, and even the best relationships reveal their limits. Scripture does not romanticize this reality. It acknowledges both the blessing of friendship and its fragility.
Proverbs 18:24 holds these truths in tension. On the one hand, friendship requires intentionality. Relationships do not thrive on neglect. On the other hand, the proverb points us toward a category of friendship that transcends human reliability: “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” This is not poetic exaggeration. It is theological direction. Scripture is quietly steering our expectations away from placing ultimate weight on human companionship and toward the One who alone can bear it.
Jesus makes this explicit in John 15. In one of the most intimate moments of His earthly ministry, on the night before His crucifixion, He reframes the relationship between Himself and His disciples. No longer servants merely carrying out commands, they are called friends—those who are brought into confidence, who are trusted with knowledge of the Father’s will. The Greek word Jesus uses for friend, philos, implies affection, loyalty, and chosen closeness. Yet this friendship is defined not by convenience, but by sacrifice. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Jesus does not promise a friendship free from sorrow; He promises a friendship proven in sorrow.
The story of Joseph Scriven brings this truth out of abstraction and into lived experience. Born in Ireland in 1819, Scriven’s life was marked early by devastating loss. The drowning of his fiancée on the eve of their wedding shattered the future he had imagined. Rather than allowing grief to calcify into bitterness, Scriven allowed suffering to reorient his hope. He relocated to Canada and committed himself quietly to serving others in Christ’s name. Out of repeated losses and disappointments emerged the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” These words were not written by a man shielded from pain, but by one who had been stripped of earthly supports and discovered that Christ remained.
What makes Scriven’s testimony compelling is not sentimentality, but credibility. He learned what many of us resist learning: that even the best human friends can falter—not out of malice, but limitation. Jesus alone offers presence without expiration. Human relationships, however meaningful, are finite. They are shaped by health, time, misunderstanding, and mortality. Christ’s friendship is not constrained by any of these. He is not surprised by our grief, disappointed by our weakness, or wearied by our need. He knows us fully and chooses us still.
John 15 presses this insight further. Friendship with Jesus is not passive. It is reciprocal, active, and rooted in obedience that flows from love rather than fear. Jesus does not coerce loyalty; He invites trust. He does not withdraw when we fail; He restores and recommissions. After the resurrection, He will call Peter—who denied Him three times—back into relationship and purpose. This is friendship that survives betrayal. This is companionship that absorbs failure without severing love.
For many believers, the challenge is not affirming that Jesus is a friend, but allowing Him to be the primary one. We often treat Christ as a supplement to human relationships rather than their foundation. When friendships flourish, we feel secure. When they fracture, we feel abandoned—even though Christ has not moved. Scripture gently confronts this misalignment. It invites us to enjoy human friendship deeply, but not ultimately. Jesus is not a replacement for community; He is its anchor.
On Second Thought
On second thought, perhaps the paradox of friendship is this: the more we demand that others be everything for us, the more fragile our relationships become. We ask human friends to be omnipresent, endlessly understanding, and unwaveringly affirming—expectations no person can sustain. When they fail, disappointment often masquerades as betrayal. Yet Jesus never enters our lives as a competitor to human affection. He enters as the only one capable of carrying its full weight. When He says, “I have called you friends,” He is not offering emotional consolation alone; He is redefining security.
What if the loneliness many believers feel is not due to the absence of people, but the misplacement of trust? What if the ache we experience when relationships disappoint is meant to drive us not into isolation, but into deeper communion with Christ? Jesus does not ask us to stop loving others. He asks us to love them without requiring them to be saviors. When Christ is embraced as the Friend who remains, human friendships are freed to be gifts rather than lifelines.
This perspective does not diminish the pain of loss; it reframes it. Grief no longer signals abandonment, but transition. Disappointment no longer means isolation, but invitation. Like Joseph Scriven, we may discover that when earthly supports are removed, eternal faithfulness becomes unmistakably clear. The Friend who sticks closer than a brother is not revealed most clearly in seasons of abundance, but in moments when every other voice has gone quiet. On second thought, perhaps the deepest friendships are not those that shield us from suffering, but those that walk with us through it—and Christ does so without ever letting go.
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