In last week’s post, “When a Child attempts Suicide” I spoke about a friend who decided to NOT take her life, instead choosing friendship and hope over isolation and death. Although she needed counseling too, she opened her heart to the love of friends and this helped her find life, because God made us social beings in need of friends. Paul confirmed this was true, and he said, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near,” Hebrews 10:25.
Jesus is the first “friendship” we need, and he reassures us “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me,” John 8:12-15. Friendship with God began before Jesus was born, because Abraham was called God’s friend (as mentioned in James 2, 2Chron20, Isaiah 40.) God has always wanted fellowship with us, beginning with the first humans, Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3:8b, we see God fellowshipping with them as “…the Lord God walking in the garden in cool of the day.” Before they fell into sin, Adam and Eve had close friendship with God.
We need other people in addition to Jesus for friendship and fellowship, but Satan encourages us to isolate ourselves from others. By tricking Adam and Eve into eating the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he damaged their friendship with God and with each other. Instead of feeling safe together, they began to blame one another for taking this fruit. Satan created discord between the humans and with God. Isolating people always remains a tool of Satan to destroy people. If Satan can cause people to fight each other and no longer remain friends, he can take away their source of greatest earthly joy, friendship, which Paul called “fellowship.”
My friend felt very isolated before she planned to commit suicide. But when another friend and I listened to her, for hours, she felt loved. She began to open up to us, and she shared her heart. We listened so much, and as she felt safer, we also talked to her, from our own hearts. Finally she opened up to her mom too, and her mom did not let her down. Even though my friend’s father had let the entire family down and abandoned them years earlier, this daughter and mom found hope together. And as a friend, she opened up to us too.
I shared about the other two gals I knew who also planned to commit suicide, one being my relative, the other being one I knew when we were in our twenties. Both of these gals lashed out at me and at other tender-hearted people in their lives. I had to quickly get away from the fake friend, because she was so vicious. I was not related to her and had no family obligation to stay in her life. She was not safe as a roommate anymore too, so I happily found housing elsewhere. Even when I occasionally saw her at a store, she continued to lash out at me, never taking blame for her own problems.
Her anger came from a spirit of division, because Satan wants to divide people. For example, Satan can coax people to deny responsibility for their own problems and instead blame others. Denying they have a problem, they say others caused them to make the bad choices. They even blame others for the way they attack them saying others did not fulfill the role they were supposed to take in serving them (the attacker.) But all of this is Satan’s plan to harm others. In a sense, the ones who are causing the division have taken Satan’s bait, the way Adam and Eve took the “bait” of the forbidden fruit. In Jude 18b-19, he speaks of people like this when he said, “…scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.” When God’s spirit is in us, we take responsibility for our sins. We do not attack others and then blame them for our behavior. Perhaps a true believer has a bad day, but she does not have a bad life.
Sometimes these people claim to be Christians, but they have either badly back-slidden, or they are deceived and have never surrendered their hearts to Christ. Either way, when these people refuse to repent and insist on continuing to attack us, often we need to walk away. Only the very strong can still relate to these people and resist the pain these people inflict.
But let’s resume looking at people with good hearts. We are wise to open our hearts to the kind people who truly love us. They are a gift from God. True friends are rare. They are the people who are in our lives for a long time, and they never let us down. They are always honest, always fair, reasonable, and helpful. They see the best in us. They want to help and not hinder us. They do not try to control us. So even if we do not share every interest with them, we are wise to include these people in our lives.
When I was much younger (decades ago) I was less open to have friends who wanted to get too close to my weaknesses. Instead I spent time with those whose interests were often athletic or artistic. To some degree, I wanted to lose myself in athletic outings (hiking, swimming, biking) or in doing something artistic, in a way that let me work on a project without any vulnerability. I would show love, kindness and forgiveness to my friends. But I was terrified of sharing my fears, sorrow or any anger. I did not want to show any of the “weak” sides of my nature. The athletic outings would keep our talk on more of a “safe” level, because it is harder (though not impossible) to go deep while moving an active body. And when doing something artistic, I could also avoid discussing anything that seemed weak. I was in so much emotional pain, when I did interact with others, I did not let them get too close to any part of my heart that did not seem strong or positive. I did not want to be hurt, and I often denied the pain I felt.
If someone tried to get too close to what I deemed a “bad side” of my heart, I told myself this friend had too many different interests and then deemed that person boring. I realize now that person was not boring, but a threat to the lie that I could not let people get close to my vulnerable sides. By not letting others fully love me, I missed out on a deeper love from some wonderful people. As I matured, I found so much emotional and spiritual healing. And I could open my heart to share the harder sides, my fears, pain and even my anger. I also learned to talk about the Lord on an intimate level, and not just about the legalistic obligations I had been taught as a youth. I savored the wisdom of people who had the courage to admit to their fears, sadness and even anger—not the “anger” where a person vents and yells at me, but where the person admits there are things that anger them, perhaps confuse them too. As they did not hide their weaknesses, they also had strength in the Lord, because they brought those hard sides of themselves to him. I enjoyed the way they loved the Lord with complete abandon.
The real issue of not “sharing interests,” was my heart. I was terrified of anyone getting too close to my weaknesses. I felt like such a counterfeit: a bad person who did good things. I went to church, read my Bible, got good grades, acted morally. But I grew up in such a legalistic home, I was convinced I was still a very bad person, just for being me. I did not need to do anything wrong, because (while growing up)I heard so often that I was inherently bad. So I did the “right” things but felt wrong. This was what caused me to keep people away from knowing me the most deeply.
But when I fully embraced God’s grace, I became eager to get to know people more intimately. I was willing to share my weaknesses, if people proved to be safe and kind. And my relationship with God grew deeper too. This actually began to happen in my late twenties, and it grew as I matured. This enabled me to better accept others into my life, and to enjoy the concept of “not forsaking the fellowship of the saints” (as some translations describe that verse of Hebrews 10:25.)
I hope I have challenged you to consider your need for safe friends. If you still feel unsafe sharing the harder sides of your heart (what you consider weaknesses), and if there is no one you can share these with, please pray for God to enable you to open those sides to him first. Like me, you may need to find a good Christian counselor. I still do not share every fear, every sorrow, every frustration with others. That would burden them, and some people are not safe for me to share with them either. But good people do exist, and they could be your friends. Over time, you can find the freedom I have found to share the harder sides of your nature with a small number of safe people. And if you already have this freedom, rejoice in this gift of God, and thank your friends too.