What makes Sing Song so great are the memories and the experience you share with your friends. If you took the community aspect out of Sing Song, it would not be as much fun or worth all the hard work we put into it.

This weekend will be full of reminiscing old memories and creating new ones but, what we will remember more than what we did are the people we were with. ACU has brought me many great friendships that I know will be strengthened and grown long after we graduate.

Some things that I have learned about friends are that they will celebrate victories with you, be encouraging, grieve with you, remind you of who you are, speak truth over you, and love you unconditionally.

Good virtues of a friend are kindness, intentionality, understanding, honesty, and availability. They do not do these things because they are required to, they do them simply because that is who they are.

Jesus said that He calls us His friends. What a friend we have in Jesus! Sometimes I wish we lived in a time when we were able to walk and talk with Jesus in person like friends do but, I believe He gave us the next best thing.

Bob Goff puts it this way, “I think His plan all along has been for us to meet the people He made and feel like we just met Him”. My friends are the best examples of Jesus for me and I feel like I’ve met Him when I walk away from them. Each one is made in His image and they love as He does. 

Friends set aside their own self-interests for the good of another, John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

When we come upon hard times and words escape us, we can trust our friends to be the ones who will get us through them. One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. – Proverbs 18:24. When we need wisdom, discernment, or edification, our friends are the iron that sharpens us.

My friends have always been there for me when I needed them the most. They continue to make me a better friend who is more like Jesus and I appreciate them dearly for that.

I encourage you to start this weekend, to be a friend who leaves people feeling as if they have met Jesus. Friends are the kind of people that pick up right where you left off no matter the amount of time that has passed.

Welcome old friends with open arms and leave new friends with a smile on their hearts. Let people know that you love them as Jesus does and that you are willing to go with them wherever the Lord takes them.