Lately I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it is to have friends who really give a ‘d…..m’ about you. Who really want to  hear the shocking stuff about your life and don’t look at you with a look of dismay.These are friends who like C. S Lewis said, ‘are looking in the same direction’ and find their comradeship in their vision and purpose.

C.S. Lewis suggests that true friendship is built not by gazing into each other’s eyes, but walking side-by-side in a shared task. He writes, “Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up—painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction.’

Who are the real friends you are bonded with and holding on tightly to each other not in a codependent, or independent, or dependent way, but in what Steve Covey called the highest form of relational maturity–interdependence?

At age 60 my life is surrounded by a few of these men who are looking in the same direction, striving to become the best we can be for each other, and for our families, and to be a good reflection of the friendship that exists within the God we worship and adore.

And in this season of my life, my three adult sons are my very best friends next to my wife, and we are all moving together.  It doesn’t get better than that!!