Everybody needs a real friend. We all need someone we can lean on and be open to in good times and in bad.

The challenge, however, is to find that real friend: someone who will love you even when you're at your worst, someone who will encourage you when you're down and out, someone who will be genuine towards you and challenge you to do what is right, someone who will be a friend through and through.

Yes, we all need that.

Many of us are unable to find such a friend. We have acquaintances. We have friends in good times only, and friends in bad times only. But we don't have a confidant.

What is a confidant?

A confidant is someone we can confide our deepest secrets, with the confidence that what is private remains private. We can trust them with our most personal of concerns.

Confidants act in the best interest of their friends. They're loyal, trustworthy, and will always be sincere and true to their friends. They may not agree with us at times, but they will tell us what we need to hear without sugarcoating anything.

These are the kinds of people we need to have as friends. We all need a confidant.

When a real friend is nowhere to be found

Such a friend, however, is rare and is difficult to find and some people only experience the opposite in life.

• They find someone they think can be a confidant, treat them like a confidant, but end up regretting it because the person they thought would be a true friend becomes a false one and spreads lies or rumors about them.
• They meet someone they hoped to be a true and faithful friend, but became disappointed as the friend abandoned them at the time they needed them the most.
• They tried to be authentic and real to someone but ended up lonely because that person didn't reciprocate the efforts to establish the friendship.

This is so sad!

Friends, did you know that even if we don't have a friend on earth, we are not alone? In fact, breaking free from loneliness isn't dependent on having many friends or confidants.

It's dependent on our relationship with and working knowledge of God.

God as our Friend

The Bible tells us that we can have God as our friend. Having Him as our friend assures us that no matter what happens, we'll never be alone or lonely.

Dear reader, God actually desires to be your friend. He loves you and wants you to know Him, not as an angry hot-headed Being who doesn't have an ounce of patience. No, He's a very warm and loving God who delights in His people.

James 2:23 tells us that if we want to have God as our friend, we must believe Him:

"And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God."

Jesus even gave this declaration to all who followed Him and obeyed Him:

"You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you." (John 15:14-15)

Dear reader, God wants to be our friend. He wants us to believe in Him and obey Him, so that we can be His friends. He's a far better friend, in fact, incomparable to any other person we can consider true in this world.