The Limitations of Friendship

Cyberspace is a ubiquitous word that describes much of our commerce and connections with each other. Bridging the worlds of both communication and business, it has, at its core, a desire to exchange information and ideas without the borders of usual person to person relationship.
There have been some startling patterns to start emerging as scientist began to scrutinize the information about how people connect. It is stunning that most of the relationships that exist in cyberworld are not in far flung places amongst vastly differing people. It is an assumption, wrongly made, that communication is far apart in context of distance. Our worlds have not changed since Stanly Milgram's famous experiments of the 1960's, wherein he established the small world phenomenon.


Tracing the connections across the internet establishes the fact that relationships, even where distance should not matter, are extremely dependent on proximity. This causes one pause, thinking that there could be some latent bias that prevents a clear picture from being formed in the mind.

Limitations are inherent in everything. The degree of pushing that we do in overcoming these are the key of connection. A few remarkable relationships mentioned in scripture remain somewhat mysterious in my mind. Considered that David and Jonathan should have been forsworn enemies, and yet a bond existed between them that was unbreakable.

Jonathan should have been more interested in killing David than Saul his father was, and yet there was a connection that prevented this. Limited only by death, this relationship was encouraged by a direct relationship. Yet there were periods of time that they were not close together, blessing this relationship with distance and perspective.

However, Gehazi and Elisha had a breakdown in values that ultimately proved the undoing of Gehazi. Gehazi, albeit a servant, would certainly developed some affinity and friendship to Elisha. Yet the ability of Elisha to Gehazi was hampered by an obvious inability of Elisha of transmitting spiritual insight into his life.
The limitation of this friendship existed in close proximity. Problematically, it was between two men of whom had to have a high degree of closeness. It seems that physical distance did not help in this case, and yet the distance between David and Jonathan did not serve to sever.

Perhaps the most deadly thing of friendship is the limitation of perspective. I need friends. You need friends. And then, we need truth. Often it is impossible because of commonly held notions differentiating in knowing what is truth and what is bias in the context of relational issues. Gehazi, and to my mind Elisha, was hampered by the sheer closeness.

Often, as it was in the Garden and on the Cross, it is in the forsaken friendships that we find ourselves at crossroads of destiny and time. Friends cannot go through it with you. You forge ahead, with God as your guide. Peter could not walk through the Garden with Jesus. Even John, the beloved disciple, couldn't stay awake. The inner strength for the coming battle arrived under an olive tree.