When David was in despair and running for his life from King Saul, his dear friend Jonathan knew he had to visit David and encourage him. At this low point in his life, Jonathan “helped him find strength in God” (1 Sam. 23:16). Friendships are valuable for many things, but their value shines forth most brilliantly in the trying times of life.
Alan Loy McGinness in his book The Friendship Factor recounts a time where he was counseling a woman who was struggling with a variety of issues. He asked her, do you have a friend with whom you can share these things? She said that she did. They ended up agreeing that this friendship was sufficient for her and that he did not need to see her. That’s the amazing benefit of a good friendship.
Do you have people with whom you can share your struggles? Very often, people today seem to have less close friends with whom they can share their struggles (see some statistics on this and some helpful thoughts on it in the article here). We’ve got more Facebook “friends” than ever, but it seems that people keep more of their struggles to themselves than ever before. Why is that?
In my view, it is because relationships and friendships take time to develop. Aristotle said, before you can have a friend, you need to eat a pound of salt. You’ve eaten together so many times that the little bits of salt you added to your meals add up to a pound. It takes a long time.
For many people, college is the time when they make some solid friendships. I certainly did. One reason for that is that I ate meal after meal with a small group of people and regularly with many others. Over time, we talked and developed strong friendships. I didn’t set out to do this. It just happened.
After college, we ask, why can’t I make good friends? We forget that we ate a pound of salt with our college of friends, and so we don’t realize the investment required to build good friendships. In order to build friendships, you have to make them a priority and put in the time. If we don’t see the time it takes to make a friendship, we won’t make the time investment that we need in order to build a friendship.
So, where do you start? Probably the worst way is to go around saying: “Will you be my friend”? It’s ironic, but you can’t make friends by trying.
You have to come alongside people and find common interests. The Catholic theologian Josef Pieper put it well:
Friends do not gaze at each other, and totally unlike erotic lovers they are not apt to talk about their friendship. Their gaze is fixed upon the things in which they take common interest. That is why, it has been said, people who simply wish for a “a friend” will with fair certainty not find any. To find a friend you first have to be interested in something (43).
Start with things you are interested in. Think broadly here: family, church, history, gardening, baseball. Then, enjoy these things with other people and talk about them. Over time, you will find that some of the people you do these things with will become friends.
Friendship starts with common interest but move beyond it. The common interest and side by side fellowship develops a camaraderie that knits our souls together (1 Sam. 18:1) and connects people even to the children and grandchildren of our friends (2 Sam. 9:1). But warning: you can’t short circuit this process or demand it. It has to happen organically.
One reason that friendships become so strong is because over time you go through trials together. Some of these trials are tests to the relationship itself. Some of these trials are outside the relationships. No doubt Peter loved Jesus all the more after Jesus forgave Peter for denying him. It’s strange, but the relationship was stronger for the failing.
By the end of Jesus’ life on earth, He and His disciples had been through a lot together. Jesus said, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials” (Luke 22:8). This had forged a deep bond between them. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends . . .”
Having friends who walk with us is one of life’s great blessings. It’s not impossible or unattainable. You just have to recognize that friendships take time, and that you must make the time for them. There’s no shortcut. Like most good things in life, friendships require a significant investment.