You need (good) friends
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
9 Oil and perfume make the heart glad,
and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel. Proverbs 27:6, 9
We all need friends. But what we need are not simply companions, or people to pat us on the back, or someone to tell you that you’re just great.
What you need, what I need, what we all need is pretty straightforward: people who love us enough to be honest. Now, here’s the thing with honesty. It will often be uncomfortable. Sometimes, when someone tells you the truth or asks a hard question, it really hurts. But those wounds are described here as faithful. You can count on them. They are a true demonstration of love.
They are compared with oil and perfume down in verse 9. These signs of blessing which “make the heart glad” are likened unto the earnest counsel of that honest friend.
When someone says something to you, and your first instinct is to reject it, ask this question: what do they stand to gain by saying this to me? If they don’t stand to gain anything, then you ought to very seriously consider what is being said. It likely is not them simply picking on you or being mean. They’re probably only willing to climb out on that branch of insecurity because they care about you.
The Blessing isn’t automatic
11 Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad,
that I may answer him who reproaches me. Proverbs 27:11
In a recent sermon on the implications of the image of God, I was addressing the attitude Christians should have toward children, and how that ought to affect our thought around topics like birth control. Verses like this inform my thinking on these topics. Children are a blessing (see Psalm 127). But that blessing is qualified by Proverbs 27: wise children are a blessing. Foolish children are a sorrow. It’s only the “wise son” who makes glad the heart of his father, especially when the enemies of that father offer reproach.
So, while criticizing a mindset that embraces small families as the norm and perceives children as a burden, I offered this counter-balance:
Be careful of the other ditch: some Christians read Psalm 127 and create a whole theology of “children are a blessing” out of it, and believe that the desire to have a quiver full of arrows means to just have as many kids as possible. But notice what Psalm 127 actually says: “like arrows in the hands of a warrior.” A warrior is someone skilled in the use of arrows. At the end of verse five: “He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” This is only true if he has good and noble children who are
a) able to be pointed to by him as a witness to his faithfulness, or
b) literally there with him, and able to defend their father.
Children are not an unqualified blessing in the Bible. A wise son is a blessing. But a foolish son is sorrow to his mother (Proverbs 10:1), grief to his father (17:25), and brings bitterness and shame to she who bore him (17:25, 29:15). So there are legitimate questions you need to consider, not only about “can I afford to clothe and feed these people”, but also about your own capacity and willingness to lay aside other hobbies, desires, and goals in order to focus on raising godly children. Because, news flash: it’s a lot of work. Blessed work. But work.
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