Why Friendship Can Be Difficult
Having friends can be difficult. A true friend is expected to be honest (Proverbs 24:26, Moffatt). This is not easy. After all, our honesty reveals part of who we really are. In friendship, we are asked not just to do things with another but to engage in significant mutual self-disclosure. Apart from this, how can we bear each other’s burdens? We can’t help to bear what we don’t know about; neither can our friends help carry our burdens if we aren’t sharing honestly.
Friendship means trusting the other to not reject us when they see the real us. A good friend, then, is one who will be accepting, compassionate, and forgiving (Ephesians 4:32, JB). We all know that forgiving can be hard to do. However, the alternative to having friends is to erect gates around us to protect ourselves (Proverbs 17:19, AAT). It may seem safer but it is a recipe for disaster, as Ecclesiastes 4:10 shows. It is by confessing our faults to one another that we are healed (James 5:16). Without friends with whom we feel safe enough to confess our shortcomings, our healing is blunted.
We need not be as vulnerable with a friend where we only believe we are to have intimacy at a level 5 of 10 as would be true with a best friend. The fact that our spouse should ideally be our best friend should let us know that not all friendships need to involve full disclosure. David undoubtedly had many friends – though none were described as being as close as Jonathan. Jesus had friends of varying degrees of closeness. Let us be appropriately self-disclosive to each of our friends.
Part of how we get the benefit of friendship is by being friendly ourselves (Proverbs 19:22, Moffatt). It is as we act like a friend that friendship can develop. The result is greater fruitfulness in our life. Friendship is worth the difficulty, worth the risk, worth the self-disclosure. The character-improving process of friendship is sometimes unpleasant but can yield great results (Proverbs 27:17, CJB). Let us seek to have wise friends with whom we can enrich each other (Proverbs 13:20).
When God wants a couple or family to alter course, the revelation is normally clear.