I’ve become convinced that perhaps nothing is so important for our walk with the Lord as good friends. I think God gives us good friends as sacraments – means of grace given to us as indices of God’s presence and conduits for our sanctification. While “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18: 24), that same Friend sends us friends to help make his presence tangible and concrete. Nothing continues the incarnation like Christian friendship. JAMES K A SMITH ( Letters to a young Calvanis t)