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Key Bible Verse: Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is really faithful? (Proverbs 20:6). Bonus Reading:Proverbs 18:24

One blustery spring day, I asked my friend Smitty to help me get our bass boat in the water. As we trailered the boat to the launch, radio reports of violent weather were validated by occasional hail rattling my old Ford van's roof. But the storm abated as we arrived at the launch site, and it was only four miles from there to our cabin. We decided to go for it.

The boat had barely gotten wet when the fury of the storm hit. I looked at Smitty, hunkered down behind the console, and said, "No rain is gonna stop two tough cowboys like us." He winced a positive nod. Then all hail broke loose, making mothballs look like kid's play. We turned tail and sped for the cover of a vacant dock. Later that night, the National Weather Service pinpointed a tornado within spitting distance of our position.

I've taken my boat up the lake hundreds of times. But there's something unforgettable about that trip that Smitty and I'll carry as part of our friendship for the rest of our lives. Yes, it was a humiliating drenching and an altogether ill-advised run. But it was also the kind of shared, survived risk that cements friendships.

—John Ashcroft in Lessons from a Father to His Son

My Response: Do I have a friendship that has been "cemented" by shared adversity?

Thought to Apply: Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
—Charles Caleb Colton (British sportsman, 19th century)

Adapted from: Lessons from a Father to His Son (Nelson, 1998) by permission.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Enable me, Lord, to forge human relationships that mirror Your faithfulness.

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