“I love you” is a potent phrase, thrown around all over the place in pop culture, and one that has lost some of its meaning. People “love” their significant others and all manner of other fleeting things in life. They throw their energies into short, intense, selfish bursts of affection that lead to the glorified roller-coaster life.

Many entertainers would have you believe that the goal of life is this kind of love (well, infatuation is usually what they’re talking about). As much as I agree that we all want romantic love in our lives, I would venture to argue that friendship, defined as brotherly love, is really what our lives should be focused on.

Proverbs 17:17 says it perfectly; “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,” (NKJV, this and following verses). Think about it. Especially in the context of worldly relationships, someone who is casual in showing love can be selfish, short-sighted, hurtful and easily hurt. A friend, on the other hand, enjoys you for who you are, and sticks it out through the rough patches. King David realized just how much sweeter friends are than shallow girlfriends when he wrote (about Jonathan), “your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of all women,” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Now I’m not criticizing love, because friendship is love! Compare true friendship to the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Friends do endure, are kind, are gentle, build you up, aren’t proud, and aren’t boastful! The list goes on. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to seek brotherly love over the romantic love glorified in the world?

This is truly what God values for us in life. While He does include marital advice in His written word, most of the relationship guidelines are focused on being the kind of person that everyone would want to be friends with! He also warns about who not to be friends with (Proverbs 22:24-25), and how to edify your friendships, “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend,” (Proverbs 27:5-17).

If that isn’t convincing enough, the ones closest to God are his friends, “… ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God,” (James 2:23, emphasis added). Friendship is the beautiful, abundant relationship that we should make as important to us as it is to God.

The beautiful thing about the brotherly love of friendship is that it leads to all other love. King David’s “shallow girlfriends,” his many wives and concubines, didn’t live up to the steadfastness and blessings of a true friendship. However, if a potential romantic interest is based on a true friendship, it can be all that and more as it progresses toward marriage! After all, isn’t the idea to be married to your best friend?

So who do you love? We don’t really love the cute guys or girls we might flirt with. We should love are our friends, who bless our lives so thoroughly in every aspect they touch. Grow with them as they help you grow to be a friend of God; the real goal of life.