Identity: Know Who You Are: Part 3 of 3 on Friendship

I'm finishing a 3 part post on Friendship, highlighting a few points from a talk I gave last Saturday for my church's women's retreat.  Our retreat theme was 'building deeper community,' and since there were many women attending who didn't know each other well, I decided to touch on the jingle: "Make new friends, but keep the old--one is silver and the other's gold."  {You're rocking your head back and forth, aren't you?!}  :) 

Part 1 was about making new friends.  Part 2 was about keeping old friends.  And part 3 (today's post) addresses knowing who you are. 

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Now that we've talked about making new friends and keeping old friends, I'm going to remind us of a third and very important point.  That is, we must cling to our identity first and foremost as a child of God. {Easier said than done, right?} 

We women can find our identity in many things--in our career, children, husband, boyfriend, and even in our friends.  We can root ourselves in our BFF, in belonging to a group (or not belonging to a group), in a new friend that makes us feel wanted and loved, or an old friend that has stood with us through the hardest of times.  But when we lean on anything other than Christ for our confidence, acceptance, peace, and security, even if it is a Christian friend, it is dangerous.

Bob Marley said: "The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."  Wow. So depressing, isn't it? 

But if you think about it, it's true.  How many of us in this room have been wounded by friendship?  How many of us have felt rejected or abandoned or hurt by a good friend?  And I'm not saying friendship isn't worth the suffering, because it is!  I am reminding, however, that there is only one perfect, true Friend.  When we rely on another human being for our deepest relational needs we will surely be hurt, because people {sometimes} mess up.   

Have you ever noticed two best friends, after they hang around each other for a while, end up talking like each other?  They might use the same phrases, same intonation; they might dress like each other and enjoy similar activities?   

I'm not knocking this, but isn't it interesting how we can tend to emulate one another?  

And we can also make our friends our idols.  It's happened to me before--so discreetly and slowly I didn't know it was happening.  But my friend's opinions became the thing which mattered most--I sought to win her approval--I feared losing her, losing my place, I worried {often}.  Good days seemed to revolve around whether I had good interactions with her and bad days were days when I sensed there was tension. I'm ashamed to admit that my confidence in me was wrapped up in 'we.'   That's an enormous amount of responsibility for an imperfect human being to bear, and it's a surefire way to destroy a friendship. 

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men I would not be a servant of Christ."  Galatians 1:10

There might also be times when God asks you to do something that your friend will not like.  Or won't understand.  There might be times we hurt one another (I hurt you or you hurt me).  Not maliciously but just because we are all broken.  And besides the command to have no other gods before Him, we are instructed to take up our cross and follow Him--not follow a friend. 

I think about the disciples leaving their every day everything as Jesus invited them to follow Him.  And how hard that must have been on any friendship, marriage, child, business.  Painted in Scripture it seems so bold and brave and romantic.  But in real life, how many of us would be willing to do what they did? 

When it comes down to it, whether making new friends or keeping old friends, the times in my life when I have felt most confident are the moments when I've been centered in my spirituality.  When I'm grounded in Jesus, I am the best version of myself and the healthiest friend to another.  Gone is the insecurity, fear, and waffling of 'who am I?'  Instead I'm thinking of Who He is.