You Gotta Have Friends...

The other night, Teri asked me, "How many Facebook friends do you have?" I really didn’t know, exactly, so I looked and found I had 364 friends. I lack one friend of having a friend for every day of the year! I started looking down my list of friends, and I realized that practically every aspect of my life is represented on Facebook through these 364 individuals. Not counting immediate family, I have FB friends that I’ve known since I was seven years old to the present, covering the last 45 years of my life.

 Those few I knew way back when, I’m still very close to (funny how that works, huh). I started categorizing the list and found that my hometown is responsible for a great many of my friends, having more than a few that grew up or still live in Fort Scott, Kansas. Several were people that I’d worked with over my career with the Bureau of Prisons. I have many FB friends that are or were named Povenmire whom I’ve never met. The name is unusual and I try to keep a family tree. Thus, I’ve reached out and made contact with these distant relatives. There are, of course, immediate family and their spouses and extended families on the list, as well as relatives of friends. I’ve met some friends through other friends on Facebook. I have friends from Ecuador and Peru that I met last summer on a mission trip. All in all, Facebook has assembled quite a diverse cross section of my life.

                                                                                                                                                         
I’m a big fan of the movie we watch every year at Christmas time, "It’s a Wonderful Life." My favorite line from the movie is when George Bailey’s guardian angel Clarence tells him "Strange, isn’t it. Each man's life touches so many other lives...In this instance, looking at my list of friends, I got to reflecting how each one of their lives had touched my own.


The Book of Proverbs has a lot of useful thoughts on the relationships we should maintain, and a few about the ones we should avoid. Proverbs 12:26 says "One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray." I hope I have been as good a guide to others as many have been to me. I’ve also had those in my life lead me astray, but I’ve probably been guilty of that with others, too.

Proverbs 13:20 says, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." I’m afraid I’ve been on both sides of this passage, as well.

One area that we could all improve on, to some degree, is found in Proverbs 19:20: "Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future."

I’m thankful for those who’ve given me wise counsel over the years. I’ve felt the benefits of Proverbs 27:17, which tells us, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."

Looking over my list of Facebook friends brought a lot of smiles with the warm memories that existed. God blesses our lives with the people that He puts in our pathways of life. Some walk with us for a short while and others are there for the duration. But, believing God can use all things, all people in any situation, suddenly those that walk alongside us at any given time increase in significance. God is at work in our lives through the people around us and using us in their lives as well. I don’t know about you, but I don’t appreciate that fact nearly enough.