When Friends Flee
Proverbs 19:4 Wealth will bring you many friends, but become poor and your friends will leave you.
There’s nothing more unsettling, unnerving, disappointing, downright hurtful, than a friend who sticks with you in the good times and deserts you in the bad. Ever had that experience?
It’s not nice, is it? When you’re flying high, everyone wants to be your friend. When you crash and burn, when your emotions are all over the place, when your life becomes messy, at least some of your so-called friends will take a step backward and distance themselves from you.
Of course, that’s by no means a new phenomenon. Over three thousand years ago, wise old King Solomon put it like this:
Proverbs 19:4 Wealth will bring you many friends, but become poor and your friends will leave you.
Which begs the question for each one of us, what sort of friend am I? Am I a fair-weather friend, the sort who hangs around successful people and steps away from those in need? Or am I someone who’ll stick with them through thick and thin?
So, let me ask you … what sort of a friend are you? Think about the people in your life – those who are doing well at the moment, and those who aren’t. Do you treat those two differently? Do you gravitate more to the ones who have their act together and distance yourself from those who don’t?
To some extent that’s natural. We all need supportive relationships. But then we all need to be in relationships too, where we’re the one who’s giving rather than taking.
Wealth will bring you many friends, but become poor and your friends will leave you. Don’t be that sort of friend.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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