Doing Life TogetherSample

It Starts With You Having good friends starts from within our own hearts. We all want friends that are authentic, respectful, humble, and supportive. One way to find friends like that is to develop and live out these attributes in our own lives. Being authentic will breed authenticity in others. Letting people see who we really are, including the mistakes and weaknesses, breaks down walls and allows others to be themselves. Giving respect will breed respect in others. Respecting boundaries, differences, and each other’s time will make it easier to do life with people that aren’t completely like us. Offering understanding will breed understanding in others. Maybe someone is going through a painful situation that you don’t understand. Maybe it’s easy to think they brought it on themselves. When we offer understanding and support instead of judgment, it allows them to be open with us and to feel God’s love. It also drives them to support us when they don’t understand our situation. Having humility will breed humility in others. There will be times where an apology is necessary or when we are to admit the other person’s idea is better than ours. In these moments, humility must take over your heart. This attribute takes the most strength and patience, but will allow a friendship to grow beyond the surface level. Friendship boils down to this: people supporting each other in this journey we call life. Allowing Christ to develop and strengthen these attributes in our lives will allow us to have and sustain deep and strong friendships. God knew that life would not be easy, and that we would need each other to truly succeed. I pray that we never take each other for granted and always treat others the way that we want to be treated. Life is better with people who push us to be the more like Christ! Let’s do this!