God has used people in my life to teach me greater lessons, and I want to share a few of those with you today. Each friendship that God has placed in you life is there from a reason. Even if the lesson you learned is a negative one, it will help grow you and help you make better choices later on.

1. Friendships can become idols
Sometimes trying to achieve a friendship with a person can become an idol in your life. There was a set of about three people, two boys and a girl, that I really wanted to be friends with. That resulted in putting this above God, and even though it really was a healthy thing, I was elevating them. I also thought that I would be completely happy if I had these people as my friends. I realized that NOTHING, not even friendships can take the place of Christ, and how quickly friendships can move to a elevated spot. I'm now friends with them and I am so blessed by them. I'm thankful that God revealed that tendency early on so that I could have so much freedom knowing that my relationship Christ is everything I need and I don't need to be someone I'm not to gain a friendship with them.

2. Be careful with what friends you hang out with all the time
If you don't balance the time that you spend with non-Christian friends and Christian friends, friends can start to influence you in negative ways. You may think you are strong enough to resist temptations that they may bring up, but you can quickly justify things faster than you ever imagined. Once you justify one thing (even little things), it can lead to forsaking some of your biggest values. This happened to be in 7th grade when some of the friendships that I developed didn't encourage me to make good decisions at all, and I definitely learned a lot of lessons from this one specific relationship. Get out of a really close friendship if you know that when you are around those people, you either 1) feel like you have to prove yourself or 2) start to do things you've never done before anywhere else. Friendships impacts aren't always negative, but you can usually tell when they aren't benefiting you.

3. Communication is key in friendships
Miscommunication ruins relationships. Not only is there does this breed misinterpretations, walls can be built up in friendships and what you thought as the strongest relationship ever can fade into nothing. The one thing that I have found that usually leads to miscommunication is talking about serious issues over text message, and also texting late at night. Always try to talk through things with people, even if it is over video chat. This will help keep the communication flowing. There was a period of time where this happened to one of my closest relationships, due to misinterpretations over test about certain subjects. I think God was really at work there because He led me to talk to my friend about it and not go to bed with walls in our relationship one night longer. Communication is key in all relationships, not just romantic ones.  

These are just a few of the things that God has used through my friends to grow me. Friends are so wonderful and really do encourage and grow us in so many ways. They can bring out the best in us, and help us through our worst. Even through all of that, God is the friend that will never leave us.
John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

Aren't you so thankful that God laid down his life for us, even when we were unworthy and unwilling to give up our lives?