The Devoted Friend

By Aivars Ozolins

The 19th-century Irish author Oscar Wilde penned a short story called “The Devoted Friend” about Little Hans and his most devoted friend, Miller. The author uses skillful sarcasm, deft hyperbole and poignant satire to drive home a point about the absurdity of a lopsided friendship. Never heard of the story? You may want to check it out; it’s worth your time.

Miller is so devoted to Hans that he never goes by his garden without plucking a large nosegay or a handful of sweet herbs, or filling his pockets with plums and cherries if it is fruit season. He always speaks beautifully about friendship and how real friends should have everything in common. While Little Hans feels proud of having a friend with such noble ideas, the neighbors think it odd that Miller never seems to give anything to Hans. But Little Hans is happy nevertheless as he works in his garden.

In the winter, however, Hans often goes without food as he does not have flowers or fruit to sell at the market. Yet Miller believes that people should not be bothered when they are in trouble, so throughout the winter he never once visits Little Hans.

When spring arrives, Miller is ready to pay Hans a visit. Happy to see him, Hans shows Miller his primroses to be taken to the market to buy back his wheelbarrow which he had to sell to survive the winter.

“Why sell primroses?” Miller exclaims, “I will give you my wheelbarrow. It needs a lot of work, but I will give it to you anyway. I know it is very generous of me.”

But now Miller wants a basketful of Hans’ primroses, and the wooden plank with which he intended to fix the broken wheelbarrow. Throughout the summer Miller keeps asking Hans for more and more favors because he is about to give him his wheelbarrow.

At the end of the story, having responded to Miller’s never-ending demands with amazing grace and kindness, Little Hans makes the ultimate sacrifice. In a terrible storm, he goes to fetch the doctor for Miller’s sick son. On his way back he perishes in the dark woods. Miller is the main mourner at the funeral. Everyone is sad for the loss, but Miller’s grief is incongruous. “A great loss to me indeed. I was going to give him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don’t know what to do with it.” I discovered this story in my college years. Even though Wilde’s hyperboles seemed somewhat over the top, I found them riveting, as they made me think about my own relationships and my walk with God. Come to think about it, there is a brutal honesty in Wilde’s exaggeration that hits close to home. Could it be that I, having spent all my life in the Lord’s work, actually might be having a similarly lopsided relationship with Him? Why do I seek God? What is at the core of my relationship with Him? Why do I need God? I hear myself, just like Miller, give empty clichés about friendship with God and about the importance of having a relationship with Jesus. But deep down under the well-worn platitudes there is a nagging sense that all is not as it seems on the surface.

I have been to church nearly every Sabbath in my whole life but why do I go? I have paid my tithe faithfully, but what is the core motivator for my giving? I have been praying every day, but why do I pray? I have been trying to live by the commandments, but why do I even try to do so?

I know I do all those things because I love God and He is my Friend. But strangely, Miller’s hyperbolic statements about friendship sneak up on me and mess up my thinking. Am I a Miller, I wonder?

Then it dawns on me—It’s not only that, but there is a Little Hans in my life too. The One who is constantly patient with me, even while I make ridiculous promises to give Him my broken junk. He is the One who always comes through for me when I need Him, even though I have been selfishly distant from Him again and again, and again. He is the One who rushes to rescue me through the darkness and storm. He is the One who gives up His life so that I can have mine. He is my One true Friend.

But the question remains. Why do I seek Him? Is it truly Him that I am after?

King David wrote: “This is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).

Aivars Ozolins, PhD, is a faculty member in the applied theology department of AIIAS Seminary. He comes from Latvia.