People You Need

One of my dearest friends visited this week and it occurred to me while he was here that he is the type of person that everyone needs around them. The reason being that he is a pusher, he pushes me to push my own envelope and find out that I can do things beyond what I had thought were my limits. He is an "edifier" in the biblical sense of building up other people and I think that we need to find such people and surround ourselves with them. We also need to discover what makes them edifiers and become that ourselves. I'm inordinately blessed to have him as a friend, but I'm even more blessed since my wife is also an edifier. She pushes me to different limits, though - more spiritual rather than physical. It is interesting to me that they both push me to areas where I am not so comfortable to discover that I have capabilities there. I think that this must be a common attribute of edifiers, breaking down barriers so that stronger foundations can be laid; or I might just be reading too many muscle-building web sites lately.