If you struggle with friendship, you are not alone! The two things I hear most often from women who confide in me as a pastor’s wife is that they fear everyone is hanging out without them and they feel wounded by past relationships. Friendship is never simple but it can be extremely rewarding. Let’s look at this messy, beautiful thing called friendship and discover how we can enjoy it for the gift it is!
Baker Publishing
Day 1
A Fragile Joy
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:12
I certainly have struggled with friendship over the years. I’ve known years of friendship drought. I’ve experienced conflicts in relationships—some of my own making—that have tied my insides in knots. I’ve received wounds so bitter that I’ve retreated to cocoon myself in the false security of isolation.
But I’ve also experienced deep relationships with other women that have enriched my life beyond measure, pointed me toward Christ, and challenged me to grow. These relationships have taught me that friendship is worth any struggle it takes to discover and deepen.
No matter where your friendships currently are, you’ve probably found that your heart never ceases longing for fulfilling companionship. Friendship seems such a rarity to find and such a fragile joy when we’ve found it, doesn’t it?
We all want relationships in which we know and are known at the deepest level. We want friendships that point us to grace and truth. Curiously, however, we seem to be standing beside one another, holding identical longings yet resolutely believing we’re alone in them. But the truth is we aren’t actually wandering alone and aimless in a desert; we’re practically tripping over each other as we grasp at our ideal dreams for friendship.
I’ve wondered at this. If we’re alike in our desires, what keeps us from turning to our left and to our right to cultivate friendship with those around us?
I have come to believe that our own excuses are one of our biggest obstacles to friendship, but I think there is one greater: we don’t have an understanding of what true friendship is or how God designed it. In the void, we’ve taken up a cultural definition that makes friendship unattainably idyllic and about self: How do other people make me feel? Who is reaching out to me or including me?
As Christians, we must look to the Bible to inform our friendships. Let’s look together to God, in his Word, for our definition and practice of friendship. Spoiler alert: we’ll find that friendship is a by-product of being more concerned with others than ourselves.
I pray you’ll find what I have discovered in my own life: friendship is messy, but even in its messiness it is beautiful indeed.
Describe your first deep friendship. What made it important to you?
Day 2
Our Wish-Dreams for Friendship
Scripture: 1 John 1:8
Perfect (and easy) friendship seems to be the last-to-die dream for many women. We see through the smoke of romantic love fairly early, we learn quickly that chasing beauty or money or perfection is like grasping for the wind, but we hold oh so tightly to our ideal dream of friendship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls this our wish-dream. In his book Life Together, he says we all have wish-dreams about life in Christian community: “The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it.”
Unfortunately, Christians seem to be the most stubborn purveyors of the wish-dream, because it sounds biblical to pursue idealistic unity and community. Friendship doesn’t happen according to our dream world, however. It’s not linear or static or formulaic. Friendship is formed between imperfect people among the concrete and messy realities of life. Biblical friendship is distinct in that it brings the grace, forgiveness, and truth of Jesus into those messy realities, but it is messy nevertheless. Just as marital love is forged in the daily acts of care and selflessness and mundane responsibilities, friendship is formed in real life—sin, suffering, conflict, and all.
We don’t need to give up our desire for friendship, only our desire for the immature version of it—that relationships will be forever fun and easy, that we can sit back and wait for others to come toward us, and that all of our needs will be met through other people.
Do you see the wish-dream in your own heart? Take note of its shape and be quick to release it, because the wish-dream is a hindrance to real friendship. When we hold an ideal of friendship in our minds, believing it’s attainable, we hold a standard above the heads of real women God has placed in our lives, and then we wonder why we’re constantly disappointed by the realities, complexities, and difficulties in our relationships.
A rich opportunity for friendship exists when we reject the ideal wish-dream, understand God’s design for friendship, and embrace those imperfect women who are right in front of us.
Describe your wish-dream for friendship. How do you think that ideal has affected your friendships or potential friendships in your life?
Day 3
I Call You Friend
Scripture: John 15:15
When I see a picture on social media of two people I know hanging out, my reflexive thought is, Why wasn’t I invited? Even if I barely know those people. Even if they are hanging out clear across the country. Even if in reality I’m not all that interested in actually hanging out. I just want to be chosen and loved. We all do.
We can’t rely on instinct, blindly seeking our destination of friendship based on feel. We mustn’t look for God to frame friendship in the way we design; we must look to him and discover the map he’s already given. Otherwise we will chase dreams and feelings-driven experiences and shun the realities that true, God-given community requires.
Friendship began with God extending his hand toward humanity. In the beginning, he sought out the company of the people he’d created, walking with them in the garden. Even after sin entered the world he selected people to be his friends: Abraham and Moses. These patriarchs had unique privileges of friendship—God spoke to Moses in private conversation and gave Abraham the title of his friend forever.
Like ripples extending outward on a pond, God grew his circle of friendship ever wider. Through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, he extended the offer of friendship to all people, offering reconciliation between God and humanity to anyone who would come to him by faith.
Friendship is almost too trivial a word for what Christ offers, for we are certainly not his peers. However, the word friend does convey the delight of the Father in those he’s befriended, the companionship available to us in Christ, the moment-to-moment help we have in the Holy Spirit, and the enjoyment we can find in God even in the mundane routines of life. Through Jesus, there is nothing left between God and us that hinders our intimacy as friends. If ever we sought a wish-dream, this is it—and, thankfully, profound intimacy with the greatest Friend is not a dream but a sure reality.
Fellowship with God leads to friendship with others. Friendship is a gift from our Father, and we’re right to give it and receive it with joy.
Have you ever considered that God wants to be friends with you? How do you respond to that idea?
Day 4
Holding to the Anchor
Scripture: Proverbs 27:17
Our goal is not to arrive at a linear version of friendship where we get all of our relationships lined up just so and keep them that way for a lifetime. No, the goal of friendship is to secure ourselves to the sure, steadfast anchor of Christ and, while holding to that anchor, give and receive the gift of friendship as we have opportunity. The goal is to enjoy God together with others and, as we move through life, to sharpen and allow ourselves to be sharpened by friends.
We imitate Jesus with one another, willing to face the stark realities and consequences of sin, all the while persevering in our efforts to offer love, grace, forgiveness, reconciliation, comfort, and care to one another. In doing so, we display to one another and the world how God loves and, through this, bring him glory. This is our destination, the point on the map we move toward: bringing God glory.
We must not give up on dreams of friendship, because friendship is a good and godly desire. Yet we must be careful that our dreams align with God’s. The sense of struggle we feel in relationships, the physical and emotional separation we experience—we must recognize these feelings as a longing for the perfection and beauty of heaven. This is a beautiful desire, not something we should feel ashamed to have. But we must bring this desire to God and learn to trust and receive from him. We must, as with any good gift, hold this desire in its proper place and appreciate what he has given us right now, even if what he’s given is not necessarily what we envision.
A good, biblical friendship actually brings us to that place of longing, because it brings us back around to God. Friendship begins with God because all truth begins with him and because friendship was his idea in the first place; it ends with God because biblical friendship points us back to him and stirs our anticipation of unmarred, heavenly relationships with our Father and with others.
In the present, the road on our map is bumpy and broken. Enjoying the gift of friendship in the midst of bumpy and broken is what makes it distinctly Christian, however, and also distinctly and dazzlingly beautiful.
How does your desire for friendship point you toward God?
Day 5
Biblical Friendship
Scripture: Colossians 3:12–15
Sometimes, when the wound of a friend is especially deep, our tendency is not just to write the friend off but also to write friendship off. We’re hurt so badly that we give ourselves over to cynicism, bitterness, and resentment and we wonder if friendship is worth the risk of wading through the emotions and hurts, attempting reconciliation, and making ourselves vulnerable again. We are friendly and sociable at a safe distance, but heart-level friendship? It’s too risky.
Doesn’t true friendship mean dealing biblically with our inevitable hurts, being quick to forgive, crossing life-stage boundaries, and refusing to put other women in categories? Doesn’t it mean pushing through discomfort and refusing to give up on people even when they disappoint us? And perhaps the most important question: Isn’t it the greater blessing to be a person who seeks this type of community rather than clinging to false ideals and waiting for it to just “happen” to us?
We must look to serve rather than be served, which means it’s possible that we might not be served in the ways we hope. We must be ever willing to broaden the circle, which means we must have an eye for the outsider rather than an eye for how we can be insiders, and it’s possible we might be forgotten in the process. We must be willing to address sin and conflict in an appropriate way, which means it’s possible we might be rejected. We must be willing to be vulnerable, which means we might be misunderstood and grace might not be extended to us.
Paul offers us a definition for friendship in Colossians 3. He exhorts us to actively pursue being a godly friend to others—to actively pursue being patient, forgiving, loving, and thankful. The focus is on what we give to others, not what they give to us. We don’t do these things because we hope to get something in return. We do these things because that is how Christ showed his love toward us and because biblical friendship will always model itself after him.
By actively pursuing others the way Christ pursues us, we extend an invitation for the friendship we desire but we also discover the beautiful and always-faithful way in which Christ relates to us.
How is biblical friendship different than the type of friendship we learn from the world?
Day 6
Beating the Comparison Game
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:16-17
We all harbor insecurities—about our worth, about whether or not we’re accepted or “chosen” by others. Comparison breeds fearful isolation or eager validation-seeking, neither of which are ingredients for flourishing friendships.
When our expectations are met, all is well. But when they’re unmet? We feel dejected, rejected, unloved, frustrated, and deeply disappointed.
We unleash our harsh inner dialogue, taking off any restraint that keeps our thoughts grounded in truth, leading us to think critical thoughts of ourselves and of others.
We privately crave the attention of certain women we admire. We use them to get what we want, perhaps a position or status that will get us where we want to be socially.
We make assumptions about other women based upon their outward appearance, often categorizing them by how they’re different from us.
We worry that we’ll mess up or lose the friendships we do have, causing us to cling tightly to the gifts rather than the gift-giver.
All of these thoughts betray our desires. For security. Validation. Love. Acceptance. Assurance.
For self.
God asks us to lay all that weight of need on him, because laying it on others hurts them and hurts us. He asks us to view one another through a different lens. We’re to regard other women as fellow new creations. We have the same need (redemption of sin) and the same rescuer (the blood of Jesus), and we serve the same Master.
As we rally around Christ, we look to one another not for the things only Christ can give but for gifts of edification and sharpening sanctification. The differences we see in others can be beautiful gifts to us. The spiritual gift of a friend that we don’t ourselves possess can be a blessing to us when we’re in need of that specific ministry.
If we will let each individual stand alone as a beautiful new creation of Christ and not lump them together according to secondary identities, we will have an opportunity to worship God instead of comparing and envying other women. It’s only in taking this biblical perspective that we can have the true unity and deeper community we hope for. Only then can we be a godly friend to others.
When are you most likely to compare yourself to other women? In what way is this dangerous to your friendships?
Day 7
Side by Side
Scripture: Hebrews 10:25
Our faith tells us there will be a time when our friendship-longing will be fulfilled. We will be satisfied and at peace with one another, free of shaming and blaming, in right relationship with one another and with God.
And so, having seen the big picture of time, we’re tugged back to the present day as though through a small portal. What do we have now in this gift called friendship? We have the gospel, our hope of what once was and what is to come. This gospel gives us the ability, as we wait, to practice what we’ll do in perpetuity and to draw toward one another in imitation of how Christ has drawn near to us.
May we receive our friendships as gifts from God for us—but may they not be only for us. May they be signposts, guiding any who will stop and seek directions toward what our hearts innately crave most, pointing the seeker toward a Person and a place where all longings will be longings no more. For it is only in true Christian friendship that two people who are different in every way possible—race, background, language, personality, socioeconomic level—can love like this.
Others shall know us by our love for one another. And they shall know him too. It follows, then, that friendship is worth the effort. It’s worth it to leave your wounded isolation and try again. It’s worth it to forgive a sister. It’s worth it to give your time and energy to your friendships. It’s worth it to push through the awkward. It’s worth it to love and serve and seek to understand.
We’re not at the supper table yet, and it’s going to be a long journey to get there. By enduring with one another and bearing with one another, by being willing to walk through the gore of life and hold our friends’ fragile stories close to ourselves while simultaneously offering them hope, by receiving wounding kisses from a faithful friend, we are linking arms and journeying toward that table together.
When we sit side by side at the supper table, we will be celebrating that we made it to our destination. We made it because of Christ, we made it with the help of our friends, and we made it together.
How does your confidence in heaven affect your friendships today?