It is always a dangerous experiment — besides being often a cruel one — willfully to test affection. Disputing is a shock to confidence, and without confidence, friendship cannot continue.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black
Category: FRIENDSHIP
-
It is true that love cannot be forced, that it cannot be made to order, that we cannot love because we ought to, or even because we want to. But we can bring ourselves into the presence of the lovable.
We can enter into friendship through the door of discipleship; we can learn love through service, and the day will come to us also when the Master’s word will be true: “I call you no longer servant, but I call you friend.” His love will take possession of us until all else will seem as hatred in comparison.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
Everyone who enters into the covenant knows the world to be a spiritual arena in which the love of God manifests itself. He walks no longer on a sodden earth and under a gray sky, for he knows that, although all people misunderstand him, he is understood, and followed with loving sympathy, in Heaven.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
There has been implanted in man an instinct and a need that make him discontented until he finds contentment in God. At times we are forced to turn away from man and toward the infinite Father, unchanging, the same yesterday, today, and forever? This is the urgent, imperious need of man.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
The sickness of heart that is the lot of all, the loneliness that not even the voice of a friend can dispel, and the grief that seems to stop the pulse of life itself find their final meaning in this compulsion toward the divine. We are sometimes driven out not knowing whither we go, not knowing the purpose of it, but only knowing through sheer necessity that here we have no abiding city, or home, or life, or love, and seeking a city, a home, a life, a love that has foundations.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
If the fault of the estrangement lies with us, the burden of confession should rest upon us also. To go to our friend with sincere penitence is no more than our duty. Whether the result is successful or not, it will mean a blessing for our own soul. Humility brings its own reward, for it brings God into one’s life. Even if we have cause to suspect that the offended brother will not receive us kindly, still such reparation as we can make is at least the gate to reconciliation. It may be too late, but confession will lighten the burden on our own heart. Our brother may be so offended that he is harder to be won than a strong city, but he is far more worth winning; and even if the effort is unsuccessful, it is better than the cowardice that suffers a bloodless defeat.
…
He must show the other his fault gently and generously, not parading his forgiveness like a virtue, but as if the favor were on his side—as it is.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
The thoughtfulness of love will suggest the appropriate means, but some emphasis may rightly be given to the phrase in Christ’s counsel: “between thee and him alone.” Let there be an opportunity for a frank and private conversation. To appeal to an estranged friend in front of witnesses induces to special pleading, making the witnesses the jury, asking for a verdict on either side. And the result is that both are still convinced that they have right on their side and that they have been wronged.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
Love is the center of a circle that broadens out in ever-widening circumference.
Dante tells us in La Vita Nuova that the effect of his love for Beatrice was to open his heart to all and to sweeten all his life. He speaks of the surpassing virtue of her very salutation to him in the street. “When she appeared in any place, it seemed to me, by the hope of her excellent salutation, that there was no man mine enemy any longer; and such warmth of charity came upon me that most certainly in that moment I would have pardoned whomsoever had done me an injury; and if anyone should then have questioned me concerning any matter, I could only have said unto him ‘Love,’ with a countenance clothed in humbleness.” His love bred sweetness in his mind and took in everything within the blessed sweep of its range.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black
SO GOOD QUOTES 