Message Minute (Spend The Hours)

"A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need." Proverbs 17:17 (NLT)

When Jesus spoke of laying down your life for a friend, He meant more than dying for someone. The word He used for life points to the soul, the self, everything that makes you who you are. Most of us will never be asked to die for a friend. All of us are called to spend ourselves for one.

The currency is time. A researcher named Jeffrey Hall studied how long friendship takes to form. Moving from acquaintance to casual friend takes about 50 hours. A real friend takes around 90. A close friend takes more than 200. And hours spent working side by side barely counted. It had to be unhurried time with no agenda.

That explains a lot. If close friends have been hard to come by as an adult, you did not become less likable. The free hours disappeared into good things like work, marriage, kids and a home. But friendship is not built from intention. It is built from hours.

Consider one night in 1931. A professor named Jack believed in God but could not get to Jesus. Two friends, one of them J.R.R. Tolkien, walked and talked with him until three in the morning. Somewhere in those hours, something broke open. Nine days later Jack came to faith in Christ. The world knows him as C.S. Lewis, and millions have moved toward Jesus through his writing. It happened because a friend did not go home early.

You have no idea what is waiting on the other side of the hours you are not spending. So retire the phrase "we should get together sometime." Put a date on the calendar. Drive the moving truck. Sit in the hospital waiting room. Answer the late call. That is greater love, one hour at a time.

Reflection: Where do my free hours actually go, and which friend needs me to put a real date on the calendar?

Prayer: Lord, You never rushed past people. Show me where my time is going and whom You want me to give it to. Make me a friend who stays, listens and shows up when it is inconvenient. Amen.