The Search for Real Friendship

Pam sat there with her book open and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes.  Her hurting heart radiated off of her like a palpable wave until finally the dam broke and she began to speak, her voice raw with suppressed emotion.  Pam's story is hard but what came pouring forth wasn't her story, it was her current need.  She wanted a friend.  No one would get deep into the places she needed a companion to share with.  No one would even commit to spending time with her.  I sat in that Bible Study with a group of wildly different women in various stages of life and overwhelmingly the conversation that followed revealed a great need.  Friendship.  I thought it was just me, this loneliness, this ache to pour my heart out.  I had trained myself over the years to resist the urge.  No one had demonstrated the desire to know me.  I can barely get people to commit to hanging out.  In Christian circles we are told that's only right because we only need God.  Only He knows our hearts.  Only He can be a proper receptacle for our struggles.  But as I sat there and listened to woman after woman agree that they couldn't gather good friends no matter how much they pursued it, I was shocked.  It wasn't just me?

Is it a product of our age?  A teaching of the church?  Are we too busy getting out from under our own struggles that we can't spend ourselves on others in times of sorrow or joy?  Is it a generational thing, that we've forgotten how to hold onto people no matter what life brings?  Are there such things as deep friendships anymore?  While God will always be our best friend, the only one who will truly and completely know us and is the only perfect receptacle for our struggles, God absolutely designed us for community.  We are meant to sharpen each other, encourage each other and love each other.  

Proverbs 18:24 English Standard Version (ESV)

24 A man of many companions may come to ruin,

    but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 is often used to remind us that God is always a better friend to us than any other but an examination of the verse reveals a more subtle truth.  There is a difference between an acquaintance and a friend.  The Proverbs are full of exhortations to surround yourself with wise people.  We are called to avoid isolation; instead, we are called to fellowship.  To hold each other accountable and encourage one another.  To love one another.

While marriage and family seem to be understood as areas of our life that are full of struggle, and therefore require effort to maintain, we have forgotten how to put effort into our friendships.  How to love through disagreement.  How to spend our time lavishly on a friend in need.  How to be more interested in being real with and for someone.  The frightening truth is that the lack of practice giving and receiving real friendship has handicapped us as we practice a friendship with a God who wants to be closer than a brother.  For Pam, she has no idea how to resolve a relationship with a God who hasn't been the friend she wants.  She can't even find an example of the body of Christ being a friends heart to her.  Like many, a disappointing attempt at friendship means walking away.  They weren't real friends to begin with, our hurting heart says.  Can you see why that proclivity might not be serving us in our friendship with God?  

It is clear that this truth has been noticed.  Blogs and sermons are trumpeting the call to hospitality.  They are encouraging us to open our doors and invite people in.  I want to add my voice to that call in a slightly different timbre.  Don't just open your doors out of Christian duty.  Open your hearts along with your doors and share yourself.  Take the time to get to know someone, don't just wave at them in the hall at church and consider them a friend.  Know their struggles and be a safe person they can talk to.  The church has taken the call to be the hands and feet of Jesus literally.  We fulfill our obligations to greet or serve communion or teach Sunday school and forget that the call to be like Jesus includes other "body parts".  Our ears, hearts and minds are also tools God uses to minister.

Be a real friend.  Reach out.  DON'T STOP!!!  

If so many of us have experienced the disappointment of failing to find real connection, that hurt is going to take some effort to overcome.  Be persistent, find your tribe.  Invite someone to join your adventure!

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