My Friends

Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him. Judges 11:3

I’ve mentioned this before, but when we first got married, my wife and I decided we weren’t going to regularly keep alcohol in the house as we raised our children. We both grew up in alcohol-free homes and we wanted the same for our kids. But I wanted to drink. To facilitate this then, I had to surround myself with others who wanted to drink so that it would be weird if I didn’t drink. So, I collected friends who drank. To be clear, these friends didn’t have a drinking problem. I did. My desire to drink drove my social habits, determining those with whom I surrounded myself. This observation isn’t a critique about those friends. Rather, it’s an indictment of me and my behavior. It was my self-destructive appetite that was reflected by my social interactions.

My choice of friends says a lot about me. This principle is illustrated in today’s passage. In the narrative, we’re introduced to Jephthah, who eventually became the next leader of Israel. At this point in the story though, Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, had been driven off by his father’s legitimate children. Living in exile, we’re told that Jephthah attracted worthless fellows. This description isn’t a condemnation of Jephthah’s friends. Worthless fellows were going to exist anywhere. The comment rather, is a harsh critique of Jephthah because he was the kind of man who attracted such people. His friends reflected upon his life choices at the time.

Now, in recovery, I do find myself surrounded by those who genuinely have a problem with alcohol or some other addiction. In fact, if you glanced casually at my social circle, you’d might be tempted to worry. But my friends don’t gravitate towards me and I towards them so that we may indulge in our addictions. Rather, we come together to seek faith and recovery. If you looked closer at those with whom I surround myself, you’d see that, though we’ve all struggled, we’ve come together to make each other better men. And that is a group of individuals of whom I can be proud to call my friends.