Friends

By Elder Robert Gordon

Area Seventy

When I was a bishop, a faithful brother asked me to come to his home. When I arrived there, I found him to be in utter despair. The cause of his anguish was that his car had broken down. Its engine had seized while his family was returning home from stake conference. In hindsight it probably seems petty, but at that moment it was a big deal—the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back. He could not fathom why this would happen to him when he was trying so hard to do everything right. With a modest income he could not see how he could repair the vehicle or survive without it.

Despairing situations in the scriptures came to my mind. I remembered Joseph Smith’s desperate plea from Liberty Jail:

“O God, where art thou? . . .

“How long shall thy hand be stayed?”¹

And the Lord’s reply:

“My son, peace be unto thy soul; . . . thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“Thy friends do stand by thee . . .

“Thou art not yet as Job”.²

Job was a righteous man beset with so many afflictions that he had cause to wonder if he should have even been born.

This faithful brother and I talked about Joseph and Job and decided he had not been deserted by his friends. I asked him who his friends were. He named a few and they were all members of his priesthood quorum. I suggested that they could help and resolved to approach them. Of course, his friends were very willing and grateful to assist. They knew where to source a reconditioned engine, how to install the replacement engine, and they quietly contributed the required funds. The problem was solved. Discouragement and despair were replaced by resolve and hope.

Elder Marvin J. Ashton asked, “What is a friend?” He then reasoned:

“Someone has said ‘A friend is a person who is willing to take me the way I am.’ Accepting this as one definition of the word, may I quickly suggest that we are something less than a real friend if we leave a person the same way we find him.”³

If we think of a friend who enables us to change for the better, we will eventually come to realize that the perfect friend is the Saviour. He said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

“Ye are my friends.”⁴

The Saviour referred to himself as a friend on numerous occasions. For example, to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

“I will call you friends, for you are my friends.”⁵

Ponder how Joseph felt when addressed as ‘friend’. I know how I feel when someone counts me as a valued friend. Is there a greater compliment? Given this divine description of the relationship, think back to Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, facing martyrdom in Carthage Jail. Approaching doom, they were comforted when two of their friends, John Taylor and Willard Richards, voluntarily joined them in the jail. John Taylor sang, “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief”. What a poignant moment it was when these words were sung:

In pris’n I saw him next, condemned
. . . My friendship’s utmost zeal to try,
He asked if I for him would die.6

We can better appreciate our Perfect Friend through all our friends who point us in His direction. President Russell M. Nelson is a friend who constantly and lovingly invites us to change, to let God prevail in our lives and to hear Him directly.

Elder Richard G. Scott suggested this friend:

“I offer you the Book of Mormon, a precious friend provided by a loving Savior. . . . Between its covers you will find the friendship . . . of Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Benjamin, Alma, Ammon, Helaman, Mormon, Moroni, and so many others. . . .

“All of them . . . will lift your vision to the perfect friend—our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus the Christ.”⁷

How do we measure up as friends?

Elder Marlin K. Jensen described an experience he had as a bishop, sorting some real concerns of a struggling ward member.

“We had a very honest conversation about the struggle he was having. . . . After exploring various possibilities . . ., none of which seemed to appeal to him very much, I asked him with a tone of frustration in my voice just what we could do to help him. . . .

“‘Well, bishop,’ he said, . . . ‘for heaven’s sake, whatever you do, please don’t assign me a friend.’

“I learned a great lesson that day. No one wants to become a ’project’; we all want spontaneously to be loved. And, if we are to have friends, we want them to be genuine and sincere, not ‘assigned’. . . .

“My message today is very simple: if we truly want to be tools in the hands of our Heavenly Father . . . we need only to be a friend.”⁸

In the current day, I am sure you can see that what is now called ministering in its higher and holier form, is simply to be a true friend, one that lifts and points their friends to the Perfect Friend.

When we offer ourselves as genuine and true friends, we participate in God’s work.