Unfortunately, lies about friendship are sometimes believed by God’s people. I know this is true because I’ve fallen for them and allowed them to affect my life. Believing these lies certainly hurts our relationships with our friends, but it also hurts our relationships with God. I wrote this post to evaluate two specific lies about friendship so that we can realign our beliefs with the truth and understand how to approach friendship biblically.
Lie #1: I Need to Have Lots of Friends
Although I sometimes fall for this lie today, it really tripped me up during high school and college. I worried about making enough friends, but I didn’t even know what “enough friends” meant. Did it mean five friends? Ten friends? Fifty friends? Before I could find a clear definition, college started—and so did my search for friends.
It took all four years of college for me to realize I had unrealistic expectations about what “enough friends” meant. For me, it didn’t mean 50 or even 10. It meant a handful.
Not much has changed since college. I don’t have tons of friends, and that’s okay. I know that as an introvert, my drive to meet new people and make new friends probably isn’t as strong as my extroverted peers’ drive to meet new people and make new friends. God created me with this personality, and He’s placed the right friends in my life at the right moments.
The quantity-over-quality concept in the area of friendship doesn’t have a biblical foundation. I’m not saying it’s bad to have lots of friends; I’m simply saying it’s unnecessary. And to be honest, sometimes people with lots of friends are so busy maintaining all their friendships that they can’t really develop them; their friendships remain shallow, rather than deepening over time.
Lie #2: I Can Find Fulfillment in Friendship
Several years ago, I read a book—Friend-ish: Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion by Kelly Needham—that God used to convict me about a college friendship in which I was investing too much time and energy. Deep down, I wanted to be in a romantic relationship, but because no guys were interested in dating me at the time, I settled for a friendship. Rather than finding fulfillment from this friend, I ended up getting hurt. I let her become way too important to me.
You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. (John 15:14-15 NASB1995)
As Christians, we’re literally friends of Jesus—the King of kings and Lord of lords. Our loyalty to Him matters far more than our loyalty to friends. They come and go, but He always stays. And His devotion to us is what should inspire our devotion to Him.
These truths don’t negate the significance of friendship. Choosing to isolate ourselves rather than connecting with like-minded believers isn’t wise. Still, our expectations for earthly friendships between fallen people should be relatively low. We can only gain so much fulfillment from others. We’re called to put our truest, closest Friend first—and He’ll never let us down.
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