Circle of Friends
I posted this picture a few weeks ago on Facebook. It got so much response I figured maybe it warranted more attention. We’ve probably all heard the term “circle of friends.” When I googled the origin, I found two. One shows to be from an old Mayan legend that in the evenings, the ancient Mayans would hold hands and dance around a bonfire, while praising each other, creating a circle. The other shows to be more recent, in 1999, when a group of California HS students decided to surround a student with Down Syndrome, who was isolated and sat alone at lunch. Before long, he was accepted by all his peers, creating the “first” circle of friends. For most of us, the term refers to close friends whose company we enjoy, those whose thoughts and beliefs are similar to our own.
In my opinion, it’s probably best to have a small circle of friends. The larger the sphere gets, the better the odds of infiltration by those who mean to harm you. As the picture says, just because they’re in your circle doesn’t mean they’re in your corner. There will always be people who don’t like us or disagree with us, but when discord comes from someone we consider to be a friend, the hurt can run a little deeper and last a little longer. Someone may do whatever it takes to get your attention, gain your trust and gain access into your circle; but once there, they don’t support you when you need encouragement or worse, they go out of their way to discredit you, shame you, and turn your other friends against you.
It is said that going through hardships will weed out those who aren’t true friends. Those who stick around are the ones you want to hang onto. They’re the ones you can count on when you’re down and hurting. It doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with the others, but don’t pour all your energy and resources into that relationship. In the church, we often refer to our friends as brothers and sisters, because in the body of Christ, we are all God’s kids. Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” A true friend will be with you through thick and thin, at all costs. Someone who is not a true friend will bail on you when the going gets tough, because they either lack the fortitude to uphold you or they’re too interested in maintaining their own image to be associated with you.
I think the wording of the picture is ironic in that a circle has no corners! You may need to take inventory if your circle begins looking like a square.