Godly Relationships: Jonathan and David

"Friends are friends forever, if the Lord is the Lord of them
A friend will not say never, cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands I know
That a lifetime's not too long... to live as friends."

- Michael W Smith
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(1 Samuel 18:1) After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

Only a couple of times in one’s life will God lead you across the path of someone that will become as close to you as Jonathan did to David. Of course, we are not talking of our spouse. A spouse comes first in our thoughts and in our love when we think of someone on this earth. And, our spouse could and should become closer to us than the Jonathon/David relationship. But, as societal creatures, some people need more. More interaction, more talking, more sharing, more dependency, so we seek out, in God’s guidance, our own Jonathon relationship.

We have said many times that relationships take love and care to maintain. A relationship that is not maintained with love and care will quickly fall into disrepair. The two friends will grow apart until there is no semblance of friendship, and you’ll seem like strangers the next time that you meet.

Relationships must be nurtured and cared for. We could compare nurturing and caring for a friendship to a gardener caring for a delicate flower. However, if your friendship needs such a delicate hand as that gardener needs with that delicate flower, then you’re in trouble. No, friendship needs the deep-reaching cultivating tools of a produce farmer. Friendship sometimes need the big sharp edges of the pruning shears to cut back unnecessary growth in one direction or the constant tending of the caretaker’s hoe to get rid of those pesky weeds.

Do you have a Jonathan/David friendship? Jonathan came into David’s life at just the right time. Just when David needed him, he appeared. And, I’m sure that Jonathan needed David as well. And we say that, because you can’t have a relationship that is only one-sided! Scripture presents us with several ways to determine whether or not you have a Jonathan/David friendship.

Friends Covenant with each other
Friends Share with each other
Friends Protect each other
Friends Speak well of each other
Friends Surrender to each other
Friends Mutually help each other (to find strength in God)

We have a great deal of kindness than is ever spoken. All the selfishness that chills like east winds the world; the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like fine air. How many persons we meet in houses, which we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knows.

The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good-will, they make the sweetness of life. What is as pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me again? What as delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, vanish, — all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friends, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Lizca Bass