Friendship, What's That About?

If you were to count the number of friends that you have would they outnumber the fingers on your hands? My dad used to always tell me growing up to cherish my friendships because the older I got the fewer they would get. Being crazy sociable I used to think, “Yea, right. I’ll always have tons of close friends.”

However, the older I get the more I am realizing how right my dad was. Developing & maintaining close friends takes time, effort, & extreme amounts of vulnerability. If we were to be real, many of us have tons of associates, but very few close friends. Not having many close friends is not a bad thing, but that means you need to truly invest in the ones you do have. 

Friendship takes time. You can’t really have a friendship with someone you are not willing to invest your time in. Why? Because time is one of your most valuable resources. When you spend quality time with someone you are telling that person he or she is of great value to you. If you were to break down the minutes of your week & see how many of them go into building deep, meaningful relationships how much time would you have invested?

Friendship takes efforts. Guys tend to really struggle with this. We often don’t call each other back for 2-3 week or unless we want something. If you want to develop a deeper friendship you have to be willing to put in very intentional effort. You will not invest energy into something you don’t really care about. If you are not willing to invest energy into a friendship then you are really communicating that you don’t care about it, plain & simple. When is the last time you thought of specific ways to invest effort in your friendships?

Friendship takes vulnerability. This is perhaps one of the hardest for people in our culture. Yea, it’s easy to be vulnerable with the external stuff, but start getting to know me more & it is just about that time for the walls to start coming. Vulnerability means making oneself susceptible to hurt, harm, or danger. We are often okay with hanging out, but allowing you in close enough to hurt me, now that’s too close. You cannot grow in friendship with someone that is not close enough to hurt you. Scary, yes. Worth it for a deep friendship, yes.

Let’s Do This Together

What would your life look like if you were to invest more intentional time & effort into your friendships? What keeps you from being truly vulnerable in your friendships?

Proverbs 18:24

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.