You probably have a best friend. If not a best friend, you surely have a friend. If not, well, you have me. Obviously.
Now think about this relationship. Hold him/her in your mind for a second as you think through these questions and apply them to this person’s relationship with you.
Are you praying for this friend? Praying with them? Focusing on her/him, rather than yourself? Serving him/her? Serving together? How much effort are you putting into it? How are you growing together? Are you keeping God at the center?
Likely, a lot of these questions aren’t going to elicit the responses we know to be the “right” ones, the ones we wish we had. You’re not alone.
In our culture friendship looks a lot more like a “meship” where it’s all centered around taking the time you need for yourself, setting up boundaries, having as much fun as possible, spilling the tea, and participating in all the drama.
Don’t feel bad if that sounds like your current friendships. It has described many of my past relationships, and occasionally it still describes my current ones.
Background:
I think, however, as Christians that we are called to deeper friendships than one focused on ourselves, or on simply having fun. I don’t think God intended our relationships to be shallow, empty friendships focus on ourselves. I think God meant more than that, intended better for us when He created Eve, so man would not be alone.
God knew we needed companionship.
In fact, this need for companionship is so strong that the Bible uses a word for this type of love – “phileo” which means brotherly love. Or, modern translation, friendship.
Think about all those friendships in movies, books, and media that we love so much. The deep, lasting friendships where they each sacrifice for each other. Don’t these make you crave something more than the friendships you have now?
I don’t know if all of these friendships are a perfect representative of brotherly love (they are fictional, after all), but I do know of a relationship that was.
One of the deepest, godliest friendships (as well as extremely sad) in the Bible is that between David and Jonathan.
Summary
When David came to court to work for King Saul (Jonathan’s dearest daddy) they quickly formed a strong relationship. Of course, they couldn’t just stay best friends forever. King Saul decided to kill David (naturally). To protect David, Jonathan sent him away and they promised that they would never harm each other or their descendants. And then… Jonathan dies. David upholds his promise, and keeps Jonathan close to his heart the rest of his life.
The story of David and Jonathan has always pulled me in because of the strength and beauty of their bond. When I think about my past, present, and future relationships I desire them to be on the level of David and Jonathan.
Their friendship had the strength to endure even while Jonathan’s father was actively trying to kill David. That is an incredible friendship, and to be so incredible, it had to be centered around God.
Strong Friendships Are Centered Around God
If you type in the phrase, “David and Jonathan” into your Bible tools search bar you’re going to get a lot of results. The thing that jumped out at me right away, was the amount of times God was mentioned in every key marking of their friendship.
In every place they make a promise to each other they, “swear it by the Lord,” (1 Samuel 20:3, NLT). Similarly, they encouraged each other in the Lord and supported each other.
One of the strongest friendships in the Bible centers around serving God, and it’s evident that is how our friendships need to operate.
Our friendships should be centered around serving God and building each other up in this. In 1 Thessalonians 4:9 Paul sums it up as, “but as touching brotherly love I need not write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.”
God is teaching us to love, and therefore our love needs to center around God.
Note:
The fact that our friendships need to center around God shows the kind of friends we need to be seeking. It’s important to note that we cannot have a true, fulfilling, Christ-like relationship without the other person being a believer. Of course, having unbelieving friends is a wonderful way to witness, but they cannot be the people you go to for everything – they don’t believe in God, and this is not going to build a healthy relationship.
Strong Friends Serve and Love Sacrificially
The second thing that I noticed when researching David and Jonathan is that the writer describes their relationship by saying things such as, “he loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:3, KJV) and, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David”.
Friendships often are very self-seeking. In my own life, I noticed a pattern (especially in relationships that were never fruitful or fell apart) where I was seeking only what I wanted. In spending time with my friends, I wanted pleasure, and in investing with them, I was only hoping for them to invest in me.
Needless to say, these sorts of relationships are the opposite of godly, and don’t have anything to do with loving sacrificially.
The key difference between those relationships, and that of jonathan and David’s is in the way they loved each other.
Jonathan and David proved over and over that they would sacrifice themself for the other – their souls were knit together through fellowship. That is some intense friendship right there.
Friendship that can only be achieved if both participants are investing 100% in the relationship. Both participants need to be sacrificing for the other, and serving each other.
Note:
You will notice I emphasized “both”. While I believe that we should be loving and serving regardless of whether this is returned, in any good friendship both participants need to invest. If one is not, it becomes toxic (I know this is overused, I’m sorry) and is, in fact, destroying the giver. I’m not saying not to have friends who are “takers”, but they definitely shouldn’t be your best friend. It’s the perfect way to invite stress and pain.)
How can we apply this?
Friendship, true phileo love, needs to be centered around Christ, and serving and loving sacrificially. It’s much easier said than done. It’s easy to get wrapped up in our friendships and skip over the “God part” and the “sacrifice part”. I’ve done this so many times.
I’m going to provide a few practical tips for recentering relationships to become something lasting and godly.
- Pray for each other – a lot. Prayer is one of the most important weapon in our arsenal, and by praying for your friend you are not only assisting him/her, but consistently loving them. Make sure your prayers aren’t all superficial things like, “I hope she gets the dog she always wanted”, but also about his/her spiritual growth, walk with God, and future. Pray before you interact with your friend, that it would be encouraging for both of you.
- Pray with each other. Prayer as a group is a beautiful form of worship, and praying with your friend centers you both around God, and reminds you of what truly matters.
- Focus on your friend. Every single time I have focused more on myself, I have found myself spiraling into a month or so of loneliness, anger, and drama. My choice to focus on what I was getting out of the relationship made everything even worse. If you need to talk about something, talk about it, but don’t make it about you.
- Serve your friend, as well as serve God and others together. Find little ways to serve them (eventually you can serve in bigger ways). Read through her poems, encourage her, or just listen if she needs that. Moving beyond that, find ways to serve God in your relationship, and serve others around you. Pick up trash together, if that’s all you know to do.
- Encourage them. When your friend goes to you for advice, how are you answering their questions? With gratifying phrases that seem good on the surface, but aren’t really true? Or are you pointing them to Scripture, saying the ugly truths, but in a loving manner?
- Evaluate how much effort you are investing in loving this person. Find new ways to show that you care, and invest time and energy – they’re going to notice.
Friendships can be more than what culture tells us they are. Friendships can be more than everyone looking out for themselves, and having the most fun possible before the group breaks up. Friendships can be godly.
I encourage you to take some time this week to evaluate the friendships you have currently. How can you make them better? Are there things you need to change? Subjects you talk about that aren’t honoring?
Maybe even set up a time where you can pray or serve with each other.
Focus on serving and loving God, and your friend to the best of your ability, and I promise, things will change.
Comment below with your thoughts on this, or reach out and email me. I love to hear from readers and I’d love to see the conversation keep going.
Keep the faith,
Anna
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