A Right View of Friendship

Some of our friends are life-giving.

There are others who are draining. Kelly Needham says we need to know how to respond appropriately to needy friends. We tend to do, I think, one of two things with needy friends. We either meet the need because it feels good to be needed and it makes us feel important, or we see them in the lobby and we turn the corner and go the other direction. And I think there's a third option for us, and I think that we become a signpost to Christ, the only one who can meet those needs. And that may mean difficult conversations where we have to tell that person, hey, you are sucking the life out of me.

We have to be honest and risk that moment of contention and conflict and say, I can't be what you want me to be. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. The Bible talks about the importance of friendships. We all need friendships. We need one another. Sometimes those friendships can be draining. We'll talk about how we deal with that and other issues related to friendships today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. It would be an interesting conversation, I think, if you were with a group of people and you said, tell me about friendships that went bad. I think there would be a lot of those stories. I'm guessing everybody could come up with a couple of what they thought were promising friendships and something went south and the relationship got broken and maybe it's never been healed or it was just never the same again even though you tried to repair it. That's one of the things I think that scares a lot of people off from even trying to pursue friendships, because we know when it goes south, that's really painful and hard. And we don't want to experience those wounds again, and so we shy away being afraid that that could happen. And I would say the pain is really deep. And it's because God made us to desire and need community and friendship, and yet when it goes bad, it hurts.

And so, yeah, natural responsibility. I'm going to avoid that at all costs. We're talking about friendships this week with our friend Kelly Needham, who is joining us again on Family Life Today. Welcome back. Thanks, Bob. Can we call you a friend now?

Yes, please do. Kelly is a writer, she's a speaker, she's a mom, she's a wife, she lives in South Dallas, and she has written a book on friendships called Friend-ish, Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion and a culture, we've talked about this, a culture of loneliness. I wonder, I'm seeing the statistics that talk about we may be lonelier today than at any point in the last hundred years, even though, as you mentioned earlier, Dave, we're connected through social media, but there are higher incidences of depression and suicide and things that come up because we know a lot of people, but we're not well known and we don't have a lot of meaningful friendships. As you were working on this book, do you see evidence of that?

Definitely. And even people who had friends in their life still would verbalize a depth of loneliness that I would say is surprising. And I think some of it is that people are settling for digital friendships over real ones. Sometimes it's that they're settling for long distance friendships that they would prefer instead of the ones right in front of them. And I think some of it is that the expectations of friendship are changing too, and people are more disappointed because their expectations are maybe higher than even they should be. And so the disappointment is frequent and they feel isolated and lonely.

And I think sometimes it's a cocktail of all of those three things and other factors. Friendships that work well are life-giving. Some friendships can be life-draining. Some relationships can be unhealthy relationships.

How can somebody know what to pursue? You want a healthy relationship. How do you know how to put the right boundaries around it and make sure you're being the right kind of friend and make sure that the friendship is growing into the right kind of relationship? I think when we think about how our faith impacts friendship, that's a big component.

Because when we're talking about Christian friendships, part of what we're discussing is friendships that we have with other people where the one thing we can say we're like together on, we're banking on is that only knowing Jesus can satisfy my soul. Only being in right relationship with God. Am I whole? Am I fulfilled?

Do I have significance and meaning? When I look at my Christian sisters, we're going, yes, if everything else is different about you, but we shared that, then we're good. And what I found in interviewing a lot of people is that faith was very theoretical and intellectual and not always lived out. And so friendships were becoming a surrogate God, a surrogate life source for them that really only our faith should be. So the topic of conversation was Jesus, was what they're learning in the Bible, but in a practical, like lived out way, I'm looking to my BFF for everything.

They're my savior from my hardship. When I'm experiencing something hard, I'm not praying, I'm calling them. And we might talk about Jesus in that, but that is a clear boundary for me as a Christian that I know when that starts happening, when I start looking to a friend for something that only God can give me, I need to back up a second. And sometimes my friends will do that for me and say, hey, I think you're expecting me to be something only God can be, but not every friend will do that. Sometimes I have to see that back up, but that's a real boundary that is in place for me and should be in place for us as Christians with every relationship, our spouses included. So you're saying that friendship could become an idol.

Yes. And I found that too. I remember one group of friends that I had, we decided to make sure that when something happens and your instinct is to call a friend, and we usually call a friend that will agree with us with whatever has happened, but we were saying instead of calling the friend right away, you can't call until you go to Jesus first. And it was really an eye-opening experience to see how that is our first reaction is to go to somebody that will agree with us or commiserate with us instead of going to the Lord, because sometimes He is enough. And I think that that's not easy to do.

It's not. Because we don't always want that. The interesting dynamic here is that sometimes it is the friend who is the person God uses to point you back to truth. So we are supposed to be agents of grace in each other's lives. That's right.

So how can I differentiate between I should just deal with this with Jesus versus I should take this to a friend and it's not codependent, but I do need this friend to help point me in the right direction? How do we process through all of that? Right. Because you do need people. We've talked about that. You need one another. And some things you can't work out fully on your own, because those friends are going to help you see what you can't see. But I think when I start to feel terrified of losing that friend in some way, that's usually a sign that I've staked my hope in one particular person instead of the people God places around me.

That I need people, I need a community, but I don't need this one specific person. And that, I think, is an easy way that we can see something's off. And that may come up in jealousy if you have a really close friend and they befriend someone else and you feel possessive of them. That's not a good sign.

That shouldn't be happening in us. Or they move, they get a job, you know, their husband gets a job and they move across the country and you're freaking out thinking, I'm not going to make it. It's like, well, something about that particular specific friend has been a little too heightened. You need people, but you don't need a specific person.

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know if you've heard Tim Keller talk about, I don't know if he has a concept for it, but he talks about making a person or a thing the ultimate. Exactly what you're saying. It's like if you lose a friendship and you think, my life's over, that means it was the ultimate. It's not the ultimate.

Yeah, it's going to be disappointing. It's bad, but it's not the end of the world. That's what you're talking about, right?

It's this whole idea that the friend becomes God in your life, not Jesus. That's right. So that's unhealthy.

Right. So what do you do about that? How do you step out of that when you realize it?

I think that depending on how far that's gone, it maybe depends on what it looks like stepping out. But for me, I think we all face this, by the way, in different varying degrees. When I notice that in me, an intense fear of losing a friend or some jealousy when one of my friends is hanging out with somebody else or building a new friendship or about to move away, that's a sign for me not to pull away from that friendship, but to go talk to God about it, to go process with Him and just repent. And God, I feel like I need this friend more than you.

And sometimes it's just because we can see them and touch them and they can respond audibly to us. And I don't want to wait for that to be flourished in my relationship with God sometimes. And I need to own that and say, Lord, I'm sorry and reconcile with Him where I need that. And then I have found for me, sometimes I need to go to someone else, my husband sometimes or a mentor and say, I've elevated a friend a little too high and I just need to tell someone else that. And say, will you pray for me?

And pray that the Lord will give me a right view of this friendship and help me to not want to just take from that friend, but be generous to them. One of my good friends moved from about five minutes away from me to the north side of Dallas. And if you live in the DFW area, north and south side of Dallas, because of traffic, you could be a state away.

I mean, it's not nearby. And that was where the Lord was leading them. It was hard because we had formed a really tight friendship. We were five minutes down the road and as moms, like that was gold. And I was losing that and I needed to grieve that. But I also needed to be generous to her and send her away and not demand from her. And I knew she was going to need time to make new friendships. And so I had to be willing to sacrifice that for her sake.

And we're called to that as Christians, to not just love the Lord with our heart, but to love one another. Let me ask both you ladies this question. Do you have things that happen in your life and you think, oh, I need to share this with someone. And the first person you think of sharing it with is not your husband, but it's your good friend. And I'm asking that in the context of, I would imagine Mary Ann would have those things in her life, that her first instinct is I'm going to share this with my girlfriends, not with Bob. Is that okay? And how do you differentiate between what's right to share with your friends or what you should share with your, you understand the question? Yeah.

So what are your thoughts on that? I have a really great relationship with my husband and I think that I'm thankful for that. And I do want to share with him first, if I can. Your whole life?

As much as I can. And I think that's how it should be. And I've talked to a lot of women who, there's tension in their marriage. And so it's easier to share with a friend. And have seen a few friendships become really devastating to a marriage.

Wow. Because that friend was becoming that intimacy that wife was missing with her husband. But there was so much pain in their history that she had current needs, but couldn't voice them because of past hurts that were unresolved. And what she needed from that other friend was to say, I can't be this for you. I'm going to push you back toward your marriage. And I've seen it go both ways. I've seen friends who are willing to do that and say, I'm not okay with being this type of friend for you. I'm going to push you toward your husband. But I've also seen someone step in and fill that role. And it was not good.

It was unhealthy. And so there are things that I find that I need to share with another woman. And I'll tell my husband about it.

Hey, I'm going to process this with so-and-so. And I just think her insight as a female is what I need. So I think it's okay that we have women. And for men, too, to share with other men stuff that they need to process maybe outside of the marriage, but let it be known in the marriage.

But that's okay. But as soon as that friendship is becoming the intimacy you desire more than the intimacy you desire in your marriage, it's not a good sign. And one of the counterfeits in my book that I tried to identify and put some language around is marriage mimicking friendships. But I think we're seeing friendships pop up that mimic the covenant of marriage.

And they're not healthy. That's not how God intended friendships to be. What do you mean by that?

What does it look like? When you have two friends, it's usually the same way. What is a marriage? A marriage is two people becoming one unit. And so when you see two friends becoming one unit, that we have something exclusive that no one else is allowed into, that's not good. Friendship is always willing to welcome another friend. But as soon as you become exclusive, and I don't want someone else in this, I'm going to create things that only we share.

We're going to operate like a unit. That's not okay. You start to get jealous when you see your friend laughing over in the corner talking to somebody else, and you go, wait, they're experiencing something that I thought was between us. That's a level of jealousy that ought to be a red flag to you.

I agree. Something unhealthy going on here. Because we have in marriage, right, a healthy jealousy. You know, some woman is making an advance on my husband. I should feel jealous because jealousy is a product of ownership. We belong to one another, but friends never belong to us. And so jealousy comes up a lot in those marriage-mimicking friendships. Kelly, what about friends of the opposite sex? That's always a tricky one. Like, I've had some friends.

Here, I'll answer that for you, honey. You know, we have high boundaries on that, but love to hear what you say about that. I think what's hard is I deal with a lot of, I walk with a lot of single women, and I do think there is a level of difference that they have that I have as a married woman. And so a lot of what I encourage my young women toward is when someone is married, you interact with that person in the mindset that they're one flesh.

And so when I see, like, one of the pastors at our church that I would say, I'm glad to see. When I interact with him, I'm also interacting with his wife. And that frames the tone of which I interact with them and when and when I won't interact with them. And for single men and women, though, who are in their 20s, there is a level of friendship that I think it's okay for them to have. In some ways, that's how those relationships are forming, but they're not yet married. And so there's some boundaries that have to exist in there, but there's a different way they interact with a married man versus a single man.

And that's a hard tension. And of course, I have to say this more spelled out than I used to, but for women, I have to remind them, your closest confidants need to be women. They do not need to be men and vice versa. It's okay to have a level of camaraderie with your brothers. We're called to do this life together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

We should be praying for one another in a way that's not segregated. But those people that are there when you're on the floor in tears should not be a brother. That should be a sister in Christ. You know, I've found that even, Bob, what you asked earlier about, is it better to share with a friend or your husband or your wife? I think I realized years ago that Ann was sharing things with one of her best friends, girlfriends, and I thought that was a good thing.

It's beautiful, you know, that God gave her that and they have that relationship. But I realized after a while, I don't know how much we've talked about this, so we'll just talk about it here on the radio. I started to realize I think she's going to Michelle because I don't respond well. I don't seem to care. I'm like, oh, it's no big deal.

Come on. But Michelle, another woman's like, oh, I get this. And I realized that was a lack of my true friendship to my wife that she's going to another woman.

Now, I want her doing that. That's not a bad thing, but if it's because her husband can't be a true friend, not just because I'm not a woman, but because I don't take the time to say, I want to know your heart. And I felt like I had to change because I want her to come to me and Michelle and Betsy and her other friends. But I didn't want her running away from me just because, yeah, Dave doesn't really get it, doesn't care, when I could.

I need to learn, and I think I hopefully have. And yet I think that you were good with me saying, you know what, I don't need all the details of what you're sharing right now, but that's why it's great to have a woman who does care about all the details. But I think one of the things that you did, Dave, for me was really helpful of he said this.

I know that I messed up, and if you need to talk to your friends about how you're frustrated with me and what's going on in a marriage, I give you free rein to talk to your close friends about that. That was a huge gift to me, especially for him being a pastor of a church. And there was a freedom there that I could say, this is what's going on. And I would try to honor Dave sometimes, not all the time. Sometimes I would just vent. But they were so good in that they were the friends that weren't just saying, yes, you're right, he's an idiot. They would say, oh, I'm hearing you. Let me pray for you.

Have you thought about that or this? And I think that's important to not just have friends that are agreeing with you. But as you were saying earlier, like they're listening for truth. They're always pushing us towards Jesus and towards our spouse. I think that's really a good indicator to know this is a good and needed friend. I think that's something that should mark our friendships as Christians is that we are for one another reconciling with God, but we're also for the institution of marriage, whether we're single and interacting with someone of opposite sex or interacting with our girlfriends. And they're talking about their marriage, that we're not just for the friend, we're for their marriage.

Because it's pointing to the glory of God in his union with Christ in the church. So that matters infinitely. And our friendships should be marked by that in a way that the world doesn't honor.

And I think it would be a good thing, just a thought, I'd speak to the husband to say, ask your wife tonight, do you go to your friends because I don't care? Or you think I don't care? Or I don't respond well?

And how can I get better? And that could go the other way. Hey, you know, to the husband, do you go to your guys? Which, again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing. That's a value of a friendship. But if I'm rarely sharing anything intimate with my husband or my wife because of that, I need to know that. And it would take courage for a guy tonight to say, honey, tell me the truth. And then if it's true, it's like, okay, how can I get better at this? I want our marriage to be the number one friendship.

That is a great question. I like where you're going with this. You love couples talking.

I do. That's like the bumper sticker I saw years ago that said, my wife says I never listen to her, or something like that. I'm wondering about relationships that feel draining, relationships where the other person seems to not be contributing, but just is sucking the life out of you.

What do you do with those? Because you care about this person, you want to help this person, but there can be some people who are just a bottomless well of neediness, and they're wanting time with you. Yeah, we tend to do, I think, one of two things with needy friends. We either meet the need because it feels good to be needed, and it feels good to be somebody's savior, and it makes us feel important. Or we run away, far, far away.

We see them in the lobby, and we turn the corner and go the other direction. And I think there's a third option for us, and I think that we become a signpost to Christ, the only one who can meet those needs. And that may mean difficult conversations, where we have to tell that person, hey, you are sucking the life out of me. We have to be honest and risk that moment of contention and conflict, and say, I can't be what you want me to be. And I would like to be friends because I value you as a person, but this is draining, and it makes me not want to see you. And it makes me not want to be around you, and I would like that to change. And this is what I can offer. This is in this season of life, this is what I have.

And you have to leave the ball on their court, and they may get mad and talk bad about you behind your back, and you can't control that. Or you can say, hey, you know, the things that you're seeing in me that you want and that you're drawn to me in, it's because of Christ in me, and He's accessible to you. And you don't need me as a mediator to get to Him and to have life.

You need to go directly to Him yourself, and I want to be a part of that for you and cheer you on in that and pray for you, but I can't be your go-between with Christ. But I think all of those moments are things that we can do to be signposts to point to the fountain of living waters. I think that some of our job as Christians is the fountain of living waters satisfies, we're all prone to wander away from it. In our friendships, we need to come alongside arm-in-arm and go, come back with me to the fountain of living waters. Come back with me there. I'm going to walk back there. You come with me, too. And sometimes people want to camp outside of that fountain and find it in each other, and that's where I think needy people fall into place is they're looking at us to be that fountain.

And we go, it's not me, it's Christ, come with me. We don't avoid, we don't meet the need, we point them to Christ. Is there any way as we want that for each other, we want that for husbands, for our wives? I talk to so many wives that have said, my husband has no one. Is there anything we should do as wives?

I'm talking to all of you here, like, to really, because we see the loneliness in our husbands, and we want that for them, we want fellowship for them. Is there any way we can help that? Should we say nothing? Should we say, hey, maybe you could, you know, do we introduce them to people? What do you guys think?

Would that be a total turn off for you guys? That's a great question for Bob Lapine. No, I'm not taking that one. We're throwing that to Kelly.

That's what we bring in the experts for. Somebody that wrote a book on friendship. Yes. I think, you know, there's a way to approach our husbands, I think, that is honorable to them and not like a finger pointing, you don't have friends, you know, but like, I want that for you. Is there anything I can do to help facilitate that?

Or is there anything I'm doing that's not facilitating that? And sometimes I've found that my either desire to process and talk with Jimmy actually drains him, and he doesn't have, you know, the energy to want to hang out with other guys. Or, you know, I've filled our schedule too full with all sorts of things, and he's tired from working a full job, being in ministry, parenting our kids. And those are things I've had to learn to create space for him to have the energy and the time to go out with friends and then to not make him feel bad for doing that. When I'm left with cleaning up the dinner dishes and putting the kids to bed by myself because he's going out to see a movie with the guys, and I need to remember that's good for him. It's good in theory again, but sometimes in the reality we go, wait a minute, I have more work now, and you do. But we're called to sacrifice for one another.

At least for our marriage, I've had to ask him, what do I do that's not helping this, and what can I do to foster that? And I think that's what you've done. I mean, that's a great answer, Kelli, because I think Ann has done that for me, has taken away the guilt factor. Like, I want you to go out with the guys.

I encourage you to play golf every day of the week, four or five hours a day. That's not true. No, but yeah, obviously not true, but when the kids were little, there was a real tension I never thought it was a rightful thing to do to be away from her and the boys with other guys. I should be doing something more purposeful, but that's purposeful. And it's not every day, but there's a rhythm that she encouraged. And I remember she said this, you're really a good friend to guys.

I'm like, really? And that encouraged me. Because it's real easy, you say it in your book, it's real easy to say, where are my friends rather than what kind of friend am I? Why don't we look in the mirror and say, what kind of friend am I?

And if I'm good, I'm not going to have a problem finding friends because they're going to want to come to me because I'm a good friend. I think it was impactful for me when I read Emerson Egridge's book, Love and Respect, because in it he talks about how men bond through shoulder to shoulder friendships or relationships, and women bond through communication. And so I think I was judging Dave, like, what did you guys talk about when you were together with your friends?

He's like, we were just playing basketball. And I think I realized, like, oh, so men bond a lot of times through doing something together. And I was judging the fact that they went deep or didn't go deep. Whereas you guys really, you would go deep, but a lot of times it was just doing something together. So even encourage our husbands to do a sport, to do an activity, to do something with another guy could be encouraging a friendship rather than not always saying, well, so what's going on?

How deep did you go in judging that? I think we have to take the pressure off because we tend to do that as wives. How'd it go? Like, tell me all about it. And it's like, they're not going to want to come home. He's not going to want to come home and tell me about his time if I'm going to nitpick it to death and figure out how meaningful it really was and who shared what. And, you know, is your soul refreshed now? You know?

It's like, I need to just encourage you to go out and make those suggestions, you know? Well, I remember Dave coming home from golf saying, oh, my goodness, you guys were together for hours. Like, how's John doing?

I'm like, you got a new driver. But I'll close with this because one of the things we did with our guys, and again, this has been decades together, is we would read books together. And here's a book to read.

I'm not kidding. Men could read this book and say, let's talk about it. We're doing a task, so it's sort of shoulder to shoulder. But then every once in a while, we'll turn to each other and go, what'd you learn? And we've got a great book for you.

We do. It's the book Kelly's written called Friendish. And Kelly, thanks for being on Family Life Today and for talking about all of this with us.

This has been really helpful. Well, thank you so much, guys, for having me. And let's hope that a lot of listeners will take the plunge and read the book with a highlighter, maybe with some friends, and maybe we can see some of the loneliness that many people are experiencing in our culture today.

Maybe some of that can evaporate as people learn how to be better friends with one another. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com, for more information about Kelly's book, Friendish. You can order it from us online. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com.

Or call to order. Our number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. So again, the book is called Friendish.

Order online at familylifetoday.com, or call to order at 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. You know, all of us have had to think differently about friendships in these days because of the coronavirus and trying to maintain those friendships, those relationships using screens and texts and phones and social media, but staying connected to one another, because that really is important. How we think and how we live out our lives in this moment is critical. This is a strategic moment for us as followers of Christ to be able to declare the goodness of God when people are afraid and they're wondering and they have questions. We're so grateful that our friend Dr. John Piper has written a book that addresses this subject. The book is called Coronavirus and Christ.

The print edition of the book is supposed to be out in a week or two, but we have the audiobook and the e-book available now, and it's available from us for a free download. All you have to do is go to familylifetoday.com, and you can download either the e-book or the audiobook of John Piper's new Coronavirus and Christ book. We want to thank the folks at Desiring God for making all of this possible, and if you missed our conversation with John Piper earlier this week, that's available as a podcast online at familylifetoday.com as well. Our team is also working regularly to put out new resources to help your family know how to make the most of these days, activities you can do together as a family, ways to kind of keep your sanity in the midst of all of this social distancing. So look for that when you go to our website as well.

That's at familylifetoday.com. And thanks to those of you who support this ministry and make all of this work possible. We are grateful for you, and we're praying for you in the midst of this time. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about the importance of commitment in marriage. Want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.