The friendship between David and Jonathan deserves our contemplation so to measure our friendships, or any human relationships for understanding and our own practices. The truncated story has served me well and made me a better person in relationships. Those relationships grow out of the principles of love in Scripture that the base of love is found in the nature of God who loves mankind no matter what an individual in the mass of individuals may believe or do. Simply, Christian love is found in the individual and is pervasive, not relying on the object of love. Love in this meaning generates from the gift from God that makes a loving person. Jonathan was a loving person, and made David a better man. Jonathan did not get it from his father, King Saul. Jonathan’s situation was certainly strained in loving David, who was seen by his father as a threat so great that Saul sought to murder David. Jonathan walked a tight-rope loving his father and loving David. He devised means for keeping loyalty to his father in his love, and safety to David in his love. He would give up the throne of the kingdom to David, and go to death with his father. Father and son died together. They were far apart in the quality of their meaning as human beings.
We are meant to gain some of the balance in our lives through relationships. Scripture offers examples of relationships, between sexes, parents and children, extended family and neighbors. The story stretches into all of life. Jesus called his disciples friends. He demonstrated personal friendship with Lazarus and the sisters of Lazarus. He loved Mary and Joseph. His love moved him when he saw the multitudes needing the love of God in word and deed. It drove him to miracles and words to give them hope and meaning. He did not withhold when only one in ten might return to express their appreciation for his love. It is one of the goals of devout Christians to try to express that love from themselves to others, without regard for how that love is received. To refuse that character of love is self-defeating. The loss is not in the love-giver, but in the ones who reject it. If I could, I would be a Jonathan to any and all persons.
It is good that we understand what will happen to the relationships in our lives in the light of the shared love of God. It begins early in our loves. The baby loves the parent, and only loses that love when there is some error in the relationship. At this point the parties have to decide if love will continue or there will be rebellion, rejection, perhaps hatred. The business is so meaningful that Moses, guided of God, made love between parent and child as a factor in the Ten Commandments. It is the first commandment that has promise related to it – the extension of life and opening to salvation. Loving persons are more likely to live longer than would otherwise be the case, and more likely to respond to the redemptive plan of God.
We need to understand that involvement, to the intensity of that between David and Jonathan will not attend all the contexts of our lives. Love, honesty, mercy and other factors belong to all, but there is the inner personal circle for practice. The limitation is necessary so to make the loving person effective in using that context for good to others. The personal basket holds only so much activity so the person chooses how much can be done inside the culture of love. We start with the family, because God made that the beginning of relationships. Some family members we hear nothing from, and receive no response to attempts for contact. Some seem to be offended at this or that, some of which we have, perhaps never had, any control. Other members of the family I have appreciated exchange when the opportunity presents itself. Others are so near and interested in relationship that I want to give, converse, and join in the activity of life – especially related to faith and love. I am currently immersed with a great-grandson in his collegiate program. The base with all members of my family is in the same love that generates my relationship with a fourth generation person, born when I was seventy-two years of age. The door for me was found in his invitation to be a part of his life. Had I decided not to participate in his program, I would have explained my situation, and believe that it would not affect our love for each other. If it did, then at least one us would not be fully loving. In God’s love we learn the nature of love. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020