AUGUST 27

A Treasured Friend

John 15:12-13

SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “Youth and Age” in which he reflected over his past and the strength of his earlier years. He wrote, for example:

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

How true. How very true! When the searing rays of adversity’s sun burn their way into our day, there’s nothing quite like a sheltering tree —a true friend —to give us relief in its cool shade. Its massive trunk of understanding gives security as its thick leaves of love wash our face and wipe our brow. Beneath its branches have rested many a discouraged soul!

Let me give an example. Elijah was ready to quit. Depressed and threatened, he turned in his prophet’s badge and quickly scribbled his resignation. God refused to accept either. He gave him rest, good food, and a “sheltering” tree named Elisha —who, per Elijah’s own testimony, ministered to him (see 1 Kings 19:19-21 for the whole story). In the analogy of Coleridge, Elijah rested in Elisha’s shade.

Jesus understood the value of a treasured friend:

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

JOHN 15:12-13

Beneath whose branches are you refreshed? Or, dare I ask, who rests beneath yours? Occasionally, I run across an independent soul who shuns the idea that he or she needs such shelter, feeling that trees are for the immature, the spiritual babes, or those who haven’t learned to trust only in the Lord. It is that person I most pity, for his or her horizontal contacts are invariably superficial and shallow . . . and few. Worst of all, his closing years on earth will be spent in the loneliest spot imaginable —in the hot, treeless desert land on planet Earth, where things are never alive and well.

So then, let’s be busy about the business of watering and pruning and cultivating our trees, shall we? Would I be more accurate if I added planting a few? Growing them takes time, and you’re really going to need a few when the heat rises and the winds blow and the streams dry up.