| The Building of Character |
Chapter 16 |
Page 8 |
Only a few suggestions have been given of the way in which many people make it hard for others to be their friends. Not only do they make it hard for their friends to continue their faithfulness and helpfulness to them, but they rob themselves of the full, rich blessings which they might receive, and lessen the value to them of the friendship which they would make of yet greater value. We can get the most and the best from our friends by being large-hearted and trustful ourselves, by putting no trammels on them, by making no demands or exactions, by seeking to be worthy of whatever they may wish to do for us, by accepting what their love prompts in our behalf, proving our gratitude by a friendship as sincere, as hearty, as disinterested, and as helpful as it is in our power to give. Thus shall we make it easy for others to be our friends, and shall never have occasion to say that nobody cares for us.
In what has been said, it is not intended to teach that in our friendships we should be impatient and easily wearied with the faults and imperfections of those whom we seek to help. We should not be easily offended or driven away. On the other hand, we should be as nearly perfect as possible in our patience and endurance. We should be Christlike, and Christ loves unto the uttermost. His love is not worn out by our faultiness, our dullness, nor even by our sinning. We cannot be full, rich blessings in the world unless we have in us, in large measure, the love that seeketh not its own, is not provoked, beareth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth. The capacity for being a blessing to others is a capacity for loving; and the capacity for loving is a capacity for self-denial, for long-suffering, for the giving of its own life without thought of return.
To many it does not seem worth while to give labor and thought and time and strength and patience and comfort at such cost, to help along through life the weak, the broken, the sinning, ofttimes the unreasonable, the ungrateful. But it was thus that Christ lived, and there is no other standard of living that will reach up to the divine ideal. Besides, it is such losing of self that is the only real saving of a life.
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