Proverbs 27:1-14
One has to wonder if Solomon was a lonely soul. He would certainly have been surrounded almost all the time by court officials, but was there a true friend in the house? versus 5-6 may have been written from a man who didn't have many friends.
The greatest danger to real friendship is flattery. The friend that will not tell you the truth about your life and choices isn't a real friend. When we cover our love with a facade of polite support, we are neither helping our friend nor telling the truth. In verse 6 is a parallelism. The open rebuke can feel like a wound. I would much rather bust a knuckle than face the truthful correction of someone who loves me. Ego does that to us. But the alternative is to surround ourselves with those who will tell us what we want to hear. When we do that, we open the door to those whose influence would destroy us. The great challenge is to have the humble heart and the thick skin that can learn rather than be offended.
"Lord, give me a tender heart and thick skin, but never a hard heart and thin skin. AMEN."
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