Count Your Friends
Of the 1,000+ “friends” I have on Facebook, I only have an intentional friendship with five.
Five friends.
That’s less than one percent of my “friend” population.
We are people that celebrate likes, hearts, and followers. We live in a world that has a distorted view of what friendship really means.
Adding friends is easy. You click a button and (if you have enough mutual friends and you’re not some stranger lurking in the corners of the internet) you get an acceptance. However, being friends with intentionality is something entirely different.
“What soda do you like best? What movie will you never watch again? What’s really causing tension in your life? What’s your relationship with God been like lately?”
It’s these kinds of questions that a friend you are intentional with should be able to answer without hesitation. Though it is no easy journey, I believe it is worthwhile. Here are four considerations when choosing who to have intentional friendship with.
1. Intentional Friendship is Costly
Let’s not beat around the bush on this. In order to have a meaningful friendship, it’s going to take effort.
It’s going to disrupt your routine to go out of your way to check on a friend. It’s going to cost time (sometimes money) to be invested in someone’s life. Even the simple act of texting someone forces you to open a new message window to engage conversation.
Sometimes, this friendship will cost you sleep. You’ll get unexpected phone calls in the middle of the night when a family member has passed on and your friend is in a maelstrom of grief and shock. You may even be in shock yourself, depending on how close you are to your friend’s family.
Resources like time, finances, and energy should be expendable when forging the bonds of friendship. It’s this reason that we must be intentional with a few of our friends and not all of them.
2. Intentional Friendship Reveals Character
In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes how we are absorbed in friendship when a common interest is at hand. In a group of three friends, the three pull character traits out of one another:
“…In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.”
When we are intentional with more than one friend and they are intentional with one another (with or without our presence), we see values that Lewis described. We are able to feed off one another’s energy.
3. Intentional Friendship Binds Us Together
In 1 Samuel 14, we read of a story of Jonathan and his armor-bearer going to take on the likes of the Philistine army.
“Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.’ ‘Do all that you have in mind,’ his armor-bearer said. ‘Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.’”
When you face insurmountable odds, it’s wise to take up the counsel of friends you’re intentional with. They have the responsibility of being candid with you on whether or not you should pursue your ambitions. The armor-bearer knew Jonathan’s heart for God. He knew that he was not blindly following his commanding officer. Instead, he accepted Jonathan’s fate as his own, life for life.
Known as "the splash brothers", Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have each other's back...and they're fire when they're on!
When your intentional friendships grow, and as the emotional vault begins to see a swell, don’t be surprised when you become an armor-bearer for your friend. Take on humility to allow someone to do the same for you, too.
4. Intentional Friendship Helps Us Ask “Who’s In?”
I almost hesitate to write that we can be guilty of choosing friends who are the same race as us. I know that I am guilty of that and it is something I am continually aware of as I look to build relationships with people. When I invest emotional energy into a person from a different ethnicity than me, not only am I getting to build a strong relationship with the person, but I am getting to see the world through a different set of eyes than my own.
Jesus has a heart for all the nations to come together and worship him, so it’s equally as important to have people of diversity in your corner, too. We do ourselves a disservice when we fail to include people from different nations and origins in our mix of friends. Heaven certainly won’t be like that; why make our life here on earth any different?
How many close friends are of different ethnicity than you?
Having friends is a blessing. Having intentional friendship is a godsend. When we go deeper in our relationships with our friends, we open ourselves up to greater glimpses of what it means to be made in God’s image and what heaven will be like. Be challenged today to consider who you want to have a deeper relationship with in your friend group.
