The Secret to Healthy Relationships

Podcast
Written By Jennie Allen

Why is it that the number one question I get online is how do I make friends?

It's almost something that I hear or consider first graders asking, you know when my kids are that age, like they have to show up at school and they have to make new friends. This is something that I hear 60 year olds saying, this is something that I hear 25 year old saying, this is something that I hear young moms saying, this is across the board an issue. Paul, I love how he opens us because he's going to be really clear. He's like, I want to tell you what you're great at. He's in prison like his life is not looking good. It would be easy for him to start this with grumbling and complaining and say like, let me tell you where I am. Let me tell you what I'm doing because I think this is the biggest problem we have when we talk about friendship. 

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ… And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:3-6, 9

The Biggest Problem We Face in Friendship

Let's start with the biggest problem we are facing when it comes to friendship…

We think friendship is about us.

We think friendship is about us rather than other people and the Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians knew that difference. He knew that ultimately his life didn't exist for himself, that friendship and community wasn't for his good.

Friendship and community are about other people and it was also about mission.

There were two components to how Paul viewed relationships, and you see it in these verses. First, he starts out with rejoicing. What is he thanking God for? He's thanking God for their partnership in the Gospel. He's thanking God for them. He's thanking God for the fact that not only does he have people in his life that love him and that care about him, he's thanking God that he has people in his life that are on mission together that have a purpose. 

I think friendship is based primarily on our affection and our purpose. C.S. Lewis said, “What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” Notice who's serving God beside you and with you and who is running beside you. That's who your friends are going to become.

I've noticed that's true in my own life!

What Makes Friendship Last

Paul had hope and joy in the midst of dire circumstances and so much of that hope and joy came in believing and knowing that there are people out there that he is partnering with and that they are on mission together. It is such a fulfilling basis for friendship because what we tend to do is we go to friends with our problems, looking for them to solve our problems and we end up becoming a word that is a little bit clinical, but I want to mention it because I think it's a big barrier to healthy friendship.

We become codependent.

When you go to a relationship and you are looking for that person to meet a need to solve a problem to fulfill you in some way, you are starting a friendship at its end. It will become destructive. It will end that friendship and the friendship will not make it because it is the wrong goal. It is the wrong focus.

What I consistently hear and what I've seen in my own life is when I go to people to solve a problem that God has meant to solve, then what inevitably happens is they disappoint me 100% of the time. They disappoint me. When that happens, that is a mercy of God because He's showing you that no other thing but Himself can fulfill you. I've learned to see disappointments in relationships as reminders that God is enough for me. 

This has been a huge shift for me. When peace and your welfare are not at the center of that relationship, when God is at the center of that relationship, conflict can be managed. People can disappoint you, you can hurt other people. Forgiveness can be issued because we're not looking for our hope, our identity, our purpose in that other person. 

So here’s what we see Paul do:

1. He's praising them and he's telling them why he's praising them. Why is he thankful for them? Because they're on mission together and he's grateful for people that are in mission with him.

2. In verse nine you see, ‘and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment’. I mean, can you imagine how stuck Paul feels? He's literally in a prison cell looking towards his death, not knowing how many more words he can even give to the churches that he's helped start and to his community and friends. I think that is such a marker of healthy friendship that you're literally looking at the people in your life and you're saying, I want you to go further than me. 

Then you read on in verse 10 ‘so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ’. He knows that this is all going to an end, that this will end in all of them being together and ultimate community with God forever. That is God's vision.

Everything Shifts

We can shift everything. I don't know what little town you live in or or what your church looks like, but I bet you that somewhere along the way Christians have gotten the main thing wrong. This is the main thing and we've gotten it wrong. And I think one reason we've gotten it wrong is because we have looked for people to fulfill us rather than understanding that God has built community to be a picture of him.

This picture of Him requires self-denial. It requires loving people even when they disappoint us and even when they disagree with us. Even when there is dissension and fighting, we work through it. It requires a love that is based on the Cross of Jesus, that is based on death to ourselves.

Rather than coming into relationships hoping and expecting and needing to get something out of them, the very first thing we've got to do is dive into community looking at how we can love them better and how can we point them to Christ. Because when we do that, it actually changes the whole paradigm. It's a whole different foundation for friendship than the world has. 

Jennie Allen
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