“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6).
I recently bought a book of the Proverbs divided into daily readings so that a person could read through them in a year. This Proverb was from a reading in the last week. My thoughts about it at the time in a Facebook post were: “What an art this has to be: to tell someone we love something painful, yet not destroy them or break our friendship in the process. My experience is that most people merely tell us what they think we want to hear. They humor us but don't help us. They protect our ego but don't help our maturity. And if we are not careful this is what we will prefer.”
I stand by it. It’s all true. But it applies to me as much as anyone. I need friends to tell me uncomfortable truths. I need people who will push back and love me enough to say, “You are wrong here.” But with tact. So I can hear them. My friend “Mike” did this for me recently. Not long after I posted something edgy on Facebook, he sent me a private message that said, “I know that you want to be purposeful and effective when you choose to engage [on social media] and I think you would enjoy this book.” I knew what he was saying. And he said it so well. So tactfully. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
My wife did the same thing later that week. Because she is closer to me than anyone else in the world, she can say things less delicately. She said something like, “For someone who considers their self to be not very political, you voice some really strong political opinions.” This is so obviously true. She added a helpful analogy that caused me to see that I was carelessly giving offense. Oof and ouch. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
I guess the most obvious thing I
could have written about was Thanksgiving in a November article. But maybe this
will help you, too. In my case I needed others to help me elevate my discourse.
And I am committed to working on that. The most important thing is to have
people care about us enough to help walk us toward truth. They aren’t doing it
because they don’t love us but because they do. Remember it was Judas who
betrayed Jesus with a kiss. It wasn’t an expression of affection but of
treachery. Anybody can flatter us, but just occasionally we need the opposite
of flattery—we need the unvarnished truth. Faithful
are the wounds of a friend.
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