I haven’t always had a lot of friends.  For a long time, I only had a lot of “acquaintances.”  Matthew 5:47 helped me to recognize the difference. “If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? Ouch.  I was (and still sometimes am) guilty of only engaging would-be friends with superficial small talk.  Afraid to open up for fear of rejection, I dance around deeper subjects, missing the opportunity to fully engage with God’s fellow children.  When I make this mistake, I am missing out on experiencing one of our Father’s greatest gifts: friendship.  We can be certain that God intended us to have friends on this earth;  Scripture is full of friendship references, and the word “friend” appears approximately 107 times (depending on the version of the Word.) Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter:     whoever finds one has found…