Take the First Steps Toward Deep Friendship

From Gospel Translations

“What should we read next?” I asked. My friend and I had just finished several months in the Sermon on the Mount, and it was time to plan our next Bible reading project.

She didn’t miss a beat. “Let’s do Ezekiel! I’ve been thinking about him lately.”

I groaned inwardly but didn’t question her choice. After all, if you’re 95 years old and willing to take on Ezekiel for your devotional reading, who am I to argue?

My friend and I have been reading Scripture together for over 25 years. When we started, I was an angsty thirty-something-year-old mother of four sons. Our women’s ministry was encouraging us to read through the New Testament together in a year, and we accepted the challenge. In long phone conversations, we discussed what we were learning and how the Spirit of God was using the sacred text to put his finger on areas of disobedience or compromise in our walk with him.

When the year was up, one of us suggested that we try to read through the whole Bible together. The next year, we started experimenting with deeper dives at a slower pace, so it was my job to create our reading schedule. We’d do a panoramic read of the entire book (if it was short enough) and then slowly consider each chapter, reading and rereading, sometimes choosing a section to memorize together until we had worked our slow way through the book.

By the time we finished Ezekiel, my friend had turned 96, and I’m almost eligible for Medicare.

We were still reading together, and we were still friends when she passed away this winter.

Obstacles to Spiritual Friendship

Sadly, a long-haul friendship like ours is unusual. Very few friendships stand the test of time. Geographical challenges are daunting. Differences of opinion divide. The constant upheaval of schedules and the ever-present ticking of the clock have made friendship seem like a luxury we can’t afford or something we’ll make time for later.

Loneliness is the fruit of lives that are scheduled to the point of strangulation. Add to that the effects of social media, tricking us into believing we’re connecting with “our people” when we affirm their vacation photos with a click and comment on the video of their new puppy. We know more about our Instagram friends than we do about our next-door neighbors, and we often find ourselves weighed down by comparison and competition with their seemingly perfect images.

In-person friendship involves a risky level of vulnerability and humility. We’ve all experienced the disappointment of a friendship that started with a glimmer of hope — but then differences arose and the whole thing unraveled.

Twentieth-century novelist Wallace Stegner wrote that friendship is “held together by neither law nor property nor blood. There is no glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare” (Crossing to Safety, 96). In a spiritual friendship, the stronger “glue” is a faith-shaping commitment to truth.

While the current of many other friendships has ebbed and flowed with the ages and stages of our children or our presence on a certain committee or project, spiritual friendship forms an enduring connection centered on enduring truth. Only in the past year, I learned that my friend (stalwart Sunday school teacher, deacon’s wife, and lifelong church lady) didn’t have a settled practice of digging into Scripture until we started reading together! She needed the accountability of a spiritual friendship.

Rewards of Spiritual Friendship

Spiritual friendship pushes back against cultural obstacles and embodies the beautiful truth of Romans 15:7: “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” We were never designed to navigate life on our own, as evidenced by all the plural pronouns embedded in many New Testament commands. Spirit-empowered hospitality extends the welcome of the gospel in which Christ is our host.

If we commit to being honest about our relationship with God and what he’s teaching us whenever we meet over the words of Scripture, that time of processing together begins to bind hearts with cords of mutual understanding, shared struggle, and the gift of intercessory prayer. When differences arise and sin tendencies are exposed, it’s important to lean in instead of running away. For those brave enough to admit to all the ways they are falling short, the prayers of a trusted friend are a supportive splint.

There are definitely benefits to having a friend of the same age — a fellow wayfarer in life, whether you are sharing potty-training war stories or bemoaning perimenopause and an empty nest. However, we must not overlook the benefits of an age gap. I have been blessed to share my family with my dear friend, and she has shared the gift of her lived experience with me. Someone who remembers post-World War II rationing was well-equipped to take a long view of whatever cultural chaos or alarming news story I was worried about. A woman who weathered the disappointment of infertility during an era when “such things” were not discussed in polite conversation had valuable insights to offer a young mother who was on her last nerve with a fractious toddler. A Christ-centered friendship provides another set of eyes and a fresh perspective on our circumstances, if we’re willing to open our lives to it.

Making Room for Friendship

Spiritual friendship is important because God created us for community. New Testament believers would be horrified at present-day attempts to privatize our faith and live the Christian life by ourselves. Tim Keller wrote, “Community works the gospel out into the corners of our lives.” Alongside a close friend, we remember that sanctification is a slow walk, that forgiveness is really possible, and that grace is the only thing that will lubricate relational gears. Enduring friendship requires more than a theoretical gospel.

Friendship calls for creativity and realistic expectations. Time together for my friend and me was scarce and precious. I was raising and homeschooling four sons while she and her husband traveled frequently in their retirement years. Journaled notes and our Bibles accompanied us to picnic tables and playgrounds. But even there, our faith was being shaped by the strong words of Scripture.

I’m grateful for a friendship that has withstood the Proverbs 17:17 test: “A friend loves at all times,” faithful throughout our changing seasons. Several years ago, my friend moved to a retirement community in another state, which further reduced our face-to-face time. We saw each other only twice a year, and until her death, I sent our reading schedules to her via email. Friendships change over time because people change. In spiritual friendship, however, we find enduring common ground in Christ. We extend the welcome and press into truth together.