Importance of Friendships

Back in January I talked about some of the lessons that I've learned through friendships/specific people in my life, and the ways that God has used those friendships in my life. 

Today I wanted to talk about how important friendships are, and how God created other people for us to interact with because we aren't called to live this life alone!

When you think of life, friendships are some of the biggest things that make up who we are.
Without other people...life would be pretty boring.
There's so many people that we can chose to be friends with, and there's just certain people we bond with easier than others.
Here are the reasons why it is so important to have good, solid friendships. A lot of middle school friendships aren't solid because of the drama and annoying stuff like that which occurs no matter what type of school you go to.
I promise that if you are in middle school, it'll get so much better. In high school, generally people realize that drama is a complete waste of time, and friendships will become more solid.
This is a verse from Proverbs 18 that talks about how having a few super close friends is more important than having a ton of friends that you may or may not be able to rely on.
"A man of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
Friendships however are so important. In the garden of Eden, the Lord said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him."
Going about our Christian walk alone would not be healthy, nor did God create us to do it alone.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up." 

I'm so thankful for the friendships that God has put into my life. It hasn't always been that way though, and there was a period of time before I started public school where I never thought that I would have a best friend. I would always get jealous when people from public school would talk about how they had "my best friend Susie."
Once I entered middle school, I made three best friends. Two of them I grew apart from by the beginning of high school, and the other one I hardly see anymore because she doesn't go to the same school anymore.
I think God used those friendships as a lesson (I guess that could've gone in the other post;) that the people I call my best friends should be people that will encourage me to be the best person I can be.
Don't "settle" for the first people who will "promise" to be your best friend. God has a plan for the friends he has in your life, and so don't settle for the first fleeting friends. It is really important to be seeking and valuing the friendships that God wants you to have. Sometimes prayer is the only way we can know that, and most of the time we never understand what God is going to do with the friendships that come and go in our lives.
God answered my unsaid prayer and gave me two best friends that I have grown closer to this past year, and who hold me accountable and encourage me to seek the Lord.
However in the times of life when I feel alone, I'm been remembered of the fact that Christ is the friend that will never leave us and is always constant.
John 15 says, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you." 

Tell me about your best friend or the strongest friendships that you have always known you could rely on, or why you think that friendships are so important!