Coffee with Friends

It seems fitting for the first post of Coffee with Friends to be about friendship. God’s word gives us clear direction on how to be a good friend, on the value of friendships in our lives, and calls us to the friend who is closer than a brother. God calls us to live in community. That means having meaningful friendships. I am so blessed with really amazing friends. I have found good friends at work, in school, and in community service organizations, but my closet friendships always start with one thing: a relationship with Jesus. The friends that I make in Bible studies or prayer groups, that I made in college through Sigma Phi Lambda and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and of course the friends that I make at church, they are the ones that I always have the strongest connection to. Proverbs 12:26 says “The righteous choose their friends carefully.” It is important that we seek out friends who are running after Jesus. If you are in a place where you feel like you are lacking friends, I encourage you to ask the Lord for those friends. Then seek out where he would have you serve and worship. Then go serve and worship. In worshipping Him and serving those whom He loves you will find friends who love you like Jesus does. *On a side note, this also sounds like good advice to someone looking for a spouse. I am really good at making friends so I am confident in my advice to you in that realm, but take my dating advice with a grain of salt. I am single, and trusting that the Lord has a wonderful husband for me. I am sure there is a future post about that topic, LOL! All I am saying is that you should test everything I am saying in this blog to scripture to make sure it is true, but definitely do that with any advice I ever offer on dating!

I met one of my closest friends in a GT pullout class in 3rd grade. But sitting at the same table at GT isn’t what connected us. The next Sunday, my family, along with two other families, visited a new church. It was a small country church. I think our three families visiting may have doubled the attendance! I walked into the sanctuary and the girl I met in GT was there. I knew someone else at this church! She is still one of my closest friends today. We pray for each other. We cry together, and even more so, we laugh together! As I am typing this, I am just a few days out from meeting up with a group of ladies from that church, my aforementioned friend included. Four pairs of mothers and daughters that are all friends. I am sure that other people who see the eight of us together think we are crazy, but I know that our time together pleases the Lord. He always provides a time of refreshing for each of us through that group. Every year there are a few of us who have had a hard year. The others are always there to encourage and offer a shoulder to cry on. Each year I hate for the weekend to end, but I am also refreshed and ready to go full speed ahead in whatever God has called me to do for the next year. When you meet with a good friend, a friend who loves Jesus and loves you, you should leave that time together feeling encouraged. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three gather in my name, I am with the them.” This means that when you meet with a friend you should leave with a refreshed spirit. All of your problems likely won’t be solved, but you will be blessed and encouraged. This is why coffee with friends is my favorite pastime.

Most of us have multiple groups of friends. (If you are an Enneagram 3, like me, then you have about 27 groups of friends and you aren’t sure of what to do when the groups of friends meet each other!) Don’t except each friend or group of friends to be exactly the same. Actually, that is the best part of having lots of friends. I know which ones to go to when I have had a hard day with clients. I know which ones to go to when I need a good laugh. Certain friends will appreciate something funny that happens to you because of what you have experienced together in the past. All of my friends will pray with me, but there are certain ones that are my first call when I need prayer. I know which friends to call if I am in a bind and need a hand. I know exactly which ones will plan a crazy scheme with me to pull a prank on a different friend. Some of my friends are reading these descriptions and they are thinking, “Yep, that one is me.” Others are reading this and wondering if they are about to be pranked. :-) You need friends of every age group too. Please hear this: you need friends who are older than you and friends who are younger than you. You need friends who are in different life stages than you are in. It’s also good to have friends your age and friends who are in the same life stage as you. For me, finding friends that are in the same life stage as me (as mentioned above) has proven to be the hardest. Finding friends who are younger than me has also proven to be more difficult that I would have thought. But, I recognize that I need both of these groups too and so I continue to seek out opportunities to find friends in these categories. Our different groups of friends are good for us. They allow us to process differently. They offer different perspectives.

I have one more piece of advice for you. Confess you sins to your friends. You don’t have to sit them down for a 4 hour session of you talking about all that you have done wrong in your life. Please don’t do that! But tell them your struggles. They will love you through it. Let them be a source of encouragement to you. As you let the Lord work to change your heart those friends will rejoice with you when strongholds are broken.

This last part is the most important truth of this post. The Lord has not given me my friends to replace Him. He has given me all of my friends as a source of joy and encouragement, but He is my closest friend. My friends can offer wonderful counsel, but He is my Counselor. He is the source of all wisdom. I should go to Him first. James 1:5 says “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” He is the only true source of Joy and Hope. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, John 14:6. He laid down His life for you, John 15:13. If you focus on worshipping Him, serving Him, confessing your sins to Him, you will find Him to be a friend who loves you closer than a brother, Proverbs 18:24.