Yes, I'm still alive.
There's something inherently uncomfortable about starting this post. I've been changing, and I don't think for the better.
I mean, ultimately, yes, I'll look back at this time in my life and see it as a necessary piece in the puzzle. But it's not a fun place to be.
Where do I even start? I've gotten out of the practice of being honest with myself, looking myself in the mirror and accepting that who I am is who I am, even if it's not who I want to be. I drive so I won't think, and I listen to music so I won't feel. Spend hours watching YouTube and browsing Pinterest, stay up hours past when I want to be awake, because I feel like there's too much to do that I'm not doing.
My thoughts revolve around me while I run myself ragged, staying out hours past I get off work being with friends who, to be perfectly honest, I have a hard time caring about.
That's not to say that I don't care about them, just that it takes a lot of intentional effort, just like it always has for me. It doesn't help things that I don't take the time I need for myself to be home with my family, and get my emotional strength back.
For me, friendships are like running. It's not enjoyable, but I'm better for it (...not that I actually run...). I'm starting to come to the realization, mentally at least, that there are benefits other than feeling good, or being comfortable. A friendship shouldn't make me feel bad, long-term at least, but that doesn't mean that it has to be super affirming or cushy in order for it to be good for me. The very nature of friendship is antithetical to my personality. It requires collaboration and compromise. I like to do things alone, and the way I want to. Yet unfortunately, that's not the model laid out in the Bible. "Two are better than one," the Lord says in Ecclesiastes. And in Job 6:14, "He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty."
I think that's significant. It doesn't just say you're a bad friend, but in essence, to not love your friends is to have a low view of God.
Are my friends created in God's image? Yes.
Has God put them in my life? Yes.
Has God redeemed me and freed me from sin? Yes.
If I am unkind to my friends, I have a low view of God's holiness, his sovereignty, or his grace.
The problem is, I've committed a classic blunder.
I started caring more about the friendship than the friend.
Let's do some philosophizing, shall we? It's been a while.
A friend is a person. A friendship is the relationship between two people, and there are initially two ways that can be visualized.
But the more I think about it, the more I start to see another model emerge.
And in this model, the friendship includes wherever the two come in contact. That means words spoken to and about each other, physical touch, observations about each other, actions that affect each other, anything that comes from one and impacts the other. There's a lot to be unpacked there that I really don't have time to right now, but the important thing to note is that the relationship of necessity doesn't exist without the two parties and that's why I think this is the most accurate model.
Friendship always includes yourself, and so I think that to really care about the friendship makes it impossible to be truly selfless. That's not to say that it's wrong to care about friendship (we're not called to be ascetics), but it is a call for wisdom in what we care the most about.
It is wrong to care about friendship at the cost of the other person's good, or at the cost of submission to God. A dysfunctional relationship is not glorifying to God.
Not that I'm saying my friendships are dysfunctional. I'm just trying to point out that while we're not called to preserve a relationship at all costs, we are called to love even our enemies.
Look at the second model again. The blue isn't really friendship, strictly speaking, it's relationship, not just what two people may be in relation to each other, but the acknowledgement that they are something in relation to each other. Sometimes that's friendship. Sometimes it's not.
God doesn't have an explicit call to friendship in his Word. But it's an understood assumption that we will have friends, and he gives guidelines within that. Have wise and righteous friends and love them. He does, however, give an explicit call to be in relation to each other for Christians. "How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!" says the Psalmist in Psalm 133:1. We are to sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron.
A quick search for the word "friend" in BibleGateway turns up some interesting results. While a discouraging number of verses are talking about the failure and betrayal of friends (Job 12:4, 16:20, 19:4, Psalm 38:11, 41:9, 55:13, Proverbs 16:28, 19:4, Jeremiah 20:10), God says not to return evil for evil, and to keep being a good friend to those who are friends. He allows for hurt, but not selfishness. There's a warning to not put trust in friends (Micah 7:5), but not to be hard in heart (Deuteronomy 15:10, Proverbs 28:14).
But as much as the Bible talks about friendship and our relationships to others, it spends much more time talking about our relationship to God. Being a good friend is good when we love God with all our hearts, bad when we love our friends more than we love God; friendship falls into the backdrop of our relationship with God. Loving our friends is worth less than nothing if we don't love God more, but it's consistent with love for God.
Which brings me to the next step of this process. My first problem was that I cared more about the friendship than the friend. But the second, and really the first and biggest, and in some ways, only, problem is that I don't love God enough.
Friendship is assumed, not commanded. My relationship with God should be my first priority, and from then on to live in consistency with that love.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forevermore.
