GETTING STARTED
As I look back over the last ten years of my life, there are many things that I am thankful for. One is a group of friends that I have met with so many times I have lost count. We share if we are sad, mad, glad, afraid, or ashamed. We listen to God together and answer the question, “What are you hiding?” These men know me. God has used these guys to shape me to be a better husband, father, pastor, and friend. I have witnessed James 5:16 become a reality in the context of these relationships.
READ THE WORD: JAMES 5:16 (ESV)
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
RESPOND TO GOD
I am supposed to have intimate friendships. There is something profoundly rich and freeing about having a few special people in my life who help me become the person that God wants me to be. Like iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17), these relationships hold me accountable for things like honesty and purity. They are friends who can make me better and stronger and more caring and courageous.
I need friends who will stand with me—for what is right, for what is best, and for what God has called me to, no matter what. But there is a risk to being vulnerable and honest with someone else. I could be misunderstood. I could be betrayed. I could be rejected. And these are the reasons why these kinds of friendships are rare.
However, the payoff is so worth the risk. Let me encourage you to begin now planting into your friendships seeds of honesty, openness, authenticity, and vulnerability, because if you do, they will grow into meaningful and intimate friendships. However, if you hide your hurts, failures, and fears, you will end up like so many—isolated and lonely. I love the way The Message says it: “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.”1
These kinds of friendships don’t have to be some idealistic hope; they can be a reality. Although I have so much further to go, I have tasted it and, let me say, it is sweet. So I invite you on this journey. I invite you never to settle for the crumbs of good friendships, but instead enjoy the banquet feast of intimate friendships.
- Ask God to give you the courage to pursue and invest in intentional and intimate friendships
Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002).