Painfully Honest

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful" (Prov 27:6).

I’m not a big fan of pain. A classmate in high school thought it was great fun to stick pins under the skin of his hands and fingers. I thought he was pretty dumb to do that. I just don’t really care to hurt myself. I guess I really would rather avoid pain.
The Bible says that some kinds of pain are actually good. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” So there you have it: it is better to be “hurt” by a friend than to be flattered by an enemy. That’s usually the opposite of the way we see it. If somebody, friend or foe, says hard things to us, we don’t like them and consider them our enemy. Those who say nice things to us are our “friends.”
The Bible says it is more important to hear the truth than to hear what sounds good to us. A real friend will be honest and rebuke us or call us down when that’s what we need to hear. Imagine if you had a booger on your lip or your fly was down. Would you want your friend to tell you about that? Of course you would! What if you went around all day like that and then found out and your friend said, “Hey, I didn’t want you to get upset at me for telling you so I didn’t say anything”? Those who really love you and care about you will tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear.
The same is true in youth group: you may want to come and just hear nice, positive things, but your youth group leaders care about you far too much to do that. We want you to see yourselves as God sees you, and if that means you need to change some things, then it may hurt, but we want to be your true friends and tell you. It is better to be “wounded” by those who love you than be flatter by those who do not care for you.