Proverbs 17:17 · World English Bible
Proverbs 17:17 Meaning A Friend Loves at All Times
A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
What does Proverbs 17:17 mean?
Love that shifts with the weather was never love but bargaining, offered when the other pleases and withdrawn when he threatens. The love that holds at all times is the love that has stopped seeing enemies, for it looks past behavior to the one truth that does not change.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
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The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
Love that shifts with the weather was never love but bargaining, offered when the other pleases and withdrawn when he threatens. The love that holds at all times is the love that has stopped seeing enemies, for it looks past behavior to the one truth that does not change. And the moment that seems most like adversity, the moment another appears to attack, is exactly where this steady seeing is born, because there the mind is given its clearest chance to choose love over fear.
The one who seemed to threaten becomes the very brother through whom the mind learns it is safe.
Friend: the part of the mind that has learned to love without conditions, seeing past changing surfaces to what is always innocent. Brother: the other who appears as adversary, the mirror in whom the mind meets its own guilt and is offered the chance to release it.
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Live Proverbs 17:17 today
- Think of the person whose name on your screen makes your stomach tighten, and wish them a genuinely good day before you open the message. You can mean it badly at first; keep going.
- When someone close to you is being hard to be around this week, stay anyway and skip the quiet scorekeeping. That is the whole thing.
- When a colleague snaps at you in a meeting, assume you are seeing their worst hour, not their character. Answer the person, not the tone.
Who is hardest for me to love right now, and what if they are exactly the one teaching me how?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Metta teaching
Goodwill is practiced toward the friend, the stranger, and the one who has hurt you, without changing the wish. Love that has conditions is still a trade.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
When you wake, remind yourself you will meet difficult people today, and remember they are kin. The one who irritates you is the training ground, not the exception.
Tao Te Ching 49
The wise meet the good with goodness and meet the unkind with goodness too. Their kindness does not depend on what comes back.
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