Is it just me, or is friendship endangered?
I’m not talking about surface-level acquaintances or social media “friends.” I’m talking about true, robust, I’m-there-for-you kind of friendships.
These days we are “rugged individualists.” People used to see themselves as very inter-dependent. Today, many people think of themselves primarily as individuals who don’t really need other people (unless, of course, they need something).
Plus, many people are more socially isolated than they should be. (This is sometimes a hangover from the pandemic.) Political polarization and chronic busyness don’t help either.
Julia Duin cites a study that says 25% of people have no one to confide in. Another says that 61% of people have few close friends.*
C.S. Lewis made an insightful observation: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”*
That’s good. His point is that you don’t “need” friends to technically survive—just like you don’t “need” a philosophy degree or a certain piece of art hanging in your bedroom. However, these things “give value to survival.”
The Bible is big on friends. Abraham was a friend of God (James 2:23). Jesus calls his disciples friends (John 15:15). There is “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). And friends “sharpen” one another too (Proverbs 27:17).
This devotional is simply an invitation to consider the value of friendship, and that simply being a good friend can be a part of your discipleship.
Friends show up. They are honest. They listen. They help. They laugh.
I don’t know what the opposite of “de-friending” someone is. But in the grace of God, we can move into those spaces in a better way.
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
Notes:
-NOTICE: Upcoming podcast interview: “Surviving the A.I. Apocalypse — a talk with C.R. Wiley.” Look for it in a few weeks on ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan.’
-*Julia Duin, Quitting Church (Baker, 2008), 53, 127.
-**Quoted in: Jud Wilhite, The God of Yes: How Faith Makes All Things New (New York: Faith Words, 2014), 97.
-Bible quotes, ESV.
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