Second Friend Day - Elmer Towns

who helps us with our singing technique, the father who helps his son catch a football
pass, or the mother who coaches her daughter in ladylike behavior.
A coach-friend will keep us from developing bad habits, making wrong decisions,
and goofing off when we should be giving our all. They don't relate to us from a
curriculum (as does the teacher-friend). Rather, they help the immediate situation. Their
favorite word is now.
Just as we cannot steer a parked car, so a coach-friend cannot make us a winner.
However, if we want to be a winner in life, our coach-friend can direct us to that goal.
Blessed is the person who has a coach-friend to keep him from making mistakes
and point him to his goals.
EXAMPLES OF FRIENDS
Joe and Fred became friends in high school and still get together to watch football
on T.V. Theirs is an unequal friendship, although they have a strong bond. Joe is a
medical doctor, has a thriving practice, and takes several vacations each year. Fred never
got to go to college. Instead, he became a welder and with six kids has a tough time
financially.
Fred looks up to Joe as a hero because of his home, cars, and status in the
community (hero-friendship), yet Joe talks to Fred about his problems with his children,
his wife, and his cigarette habit. Several times Joe would have left his wife except that
talking with Fred made him see the problem (counselor-friend) and motivated him to
work out his differences with his wife (coach-friend).
Job had three friends who came to comfort him in his time of distress: "Now
when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every
one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the
Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and
to comfort him" (Job 2:11).
When the Bible says "mourn with them that mourn," it is describing non-verbal
support that someone can give us. The friends of Job surely did this: "So they sat down
with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him:
for they saw that his grief was very great" (Job 2:13). What friends! They sat for seven
days before they said anything to Job. Then they began to talk, and that is all they did.
Finally, Job had to turn them off. ". . . for I cannot find one wise man among you' (Job
17:10). They were friends, but they did not give Job the help he needed. Why? Because
we have different friends who each help us differently.
Job's friends came to be counselor-friends but turned into teacher-friends.
However, he needed coach-friends.
Jonathan was a friend of David's. Jonathan looked up to David and admired him.
David had won the victory over Goliath and had rallied the armies of Israel to defeat the
Philistines. Jonathan knew that David was the hero and he himself was the admirer. He
also knew that David would one day be king of Israel. Even though Jonathan was the
rightful heir to the throne because he was Saul's son, David was the anointed one of God.
Jonathan and David had a "hero-friend" relationship. Even though all that a friend should
be was personified in Jonathan, theirs was an unequal friendship.