Friendship
This was written offline, after further reflection on disciple making. There's many subjects I write about personally to concrete for myself what the bible really says that I can believe, yet many others that bear writing publicly over as well, in an undecided stage or not.
Is it not better, instead of allowing relationships to start at any time, indeed, even encouraging relationships via open casual-ity and exuberant friendliness, to leave open the doors for more, is it not better to hold those at bay? For once started, there is no turning back. What I exhort is a difficult choice.
I am not single because I happen to be that way. It is a choice that I proactively uphold, and it is a choice that I do not always like. Each day I am in contact with those I would not be sad to be friends with, contrary to complete abstinence from friendship, some small amount of camaraderie I can't help but cultivate. However, allowing these individuals to become interested in me inherently pulls me into them. This applies in reverse as well. It is easier to provide so small a foothold as to present a slick cliff-side deemed of small enough worth to pass by, rather than easy common grounds for fostering conversation that only encourages slackery, distraction and preoccupation, on the job or elsewhere. Those points are hardly my reasons for avoidance though.
There are two paths to my thoughts: that of general friendship, and that of girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. The former is a thinner line to perceive in any sensible manner, the latter harder to accept due to natural yearnings. Neither is wrong or detrimental -when allowed in Godly context, the very point I mean to make.
To take the first example, general friendship with either sex. It isn't a bad thing. Yet, I do not always- and quite often don't- have the time/money/stability to upkeep another friendship beyond mere acquaintance. If that is true at the beginning of a relationship, how long will it go before it's dropped? How much affection will amass before the sudden realization that days have gone by without saying a word to that individual? Or, an act of friendship in comparison. That happens, and the friendship dies. It is not so easily reborn. No matter the good intentions for beginning- how painful, sorrowful, regrettable, and avoidable it all could be.
My plea is simply this: If you care for people, consider that you may not be beneficial for them.
That's not an easy choice, and I'm not asking you to follow my own decisions. I am vastly inexperienced with a worldview to match; too impressionable still, and overly ideological.
To continue, the idea is not that one can't be beneficial to another, but what the end impact can be. Allowing a friendship to be born only to be cut off a month later (or similar time-frame aka a few weeks to several months), at first the benefits of your friendship outweigh the break... but a ceased friendship is the sort of thing that one remembers again and again down the road. Circumstances, future friendships. Mature individuals have the capacity to see the past as it was and accept what happened and what the friendship really was, but a ceased friendship is the sort of thing that can form the heart-rock of a bitter pain and anger against the ideals of future friends. I am of course speaking specifically in conjunction to Christian characters when mentioning "ideals", but the same applies to others as well. It bears noting that ideals are not the only future thing to garner bitterness, but that one can easily see the change in befriendment at all in the first place. It only takes so many tries before each reaches the realization of human folly and insufficiency. We can not meet each others needs any more than we can meet our own.
This carries over into relationships tinged with romantic intent as well, and I don't believe that (if willing) people can't tell the difference between budding affection in friendship or a budding love interest. The one may be nearly obscured by the other, but godly and thorough inspection uncovers many things left unchecked. Isn't there love in friendship as well? Yet a different kind, as all inherently know.
The risk and danger in allowing more romantic friendships to form is simultaneously the same and different from normal friendship; for there is added emotional consequences in every way. I would not pretend to understand entirely the pain of breaking up, or the rapture of beginning. Many things I don't know, but have observed. I don't choose to doubt the intentions of those in relationships, or allowing new beginnings when not, but I consider the outcome a serious matter that can't be ignored beforehand. With that in mind, it's very possible to be friends for quite some time before the possibility exists that maybe the relationship is desired to be more. At the end there is marriage or separation, and that's an acceptable outcome in the right context. Things roll back to what's been said already though, I have to consider that I may not be beneficial for them. Am I emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and financially in a position where marriage is an option? That wouldn't be like taking off in a plane with low fuel and no parachutes?
Because I have yet to see two people embarking on a romantic venture return to their original friendship. It does not happen. Even between the most godly, mature friendship is affected in a way that can never be put back even if it is not destroyed like the majority that anyone can see. I tread on ground I do not know, merely suggesting a consequence based off consistent results. Whether that resonates with your own experiences, I trust you will know.
So my plea: If you care for people, consider the outcome of engaging your life with theirs.
I do not save people, Jesus saves. I do not change hearts, God changes hearts. I am to make disciples and be a witness to the truth, an overflowing recess of God's love for the lost. Consider if that is accomplished via making so many friends that many are inadvertently cut off and left.
Philippians 3:12
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Is it not better, instead of allowing relationships to start at any time, indeed, even encouraging relationships via open casual-ity and exuberant friendliness, to leave open the doors for more, is it not better to hold those at bay? For once started, there is no turning back. What I exhort is a difficult choice.
I am not single because I happen to be that way. It is a choice that I proactively uphold, and it is a choice that I do not always like. Each day I am in contact with those I would not be sad to be friends with, contrary to complete abstinence from friendship, some small amount of camaraderie I can't help but cultivate. However, allowing these individuals to become interested in me inherently pulls me into them. This applies in reverse as well. It is easier to provide so small a foothold as to present a slick cliff-side deemed of small enough worth to pass by, rather than easy common grounds for fostering conversation that only encourages slackery, distraction and preoccupation, on the job or elsewhere. Those points are hardly my reasons for avoidance though.
There are two paths to my thoughts: that of general friendship, and that of girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. The former is a thinner line to perceive in any sensible manner, the latter harder to accept due to natural yearnings. Neither is wrong or detrimental -when allowed in Godly context, the very point I mean to make.
To take the first example, general friendship with either sex. It isn't a bad thing. Yet, I do not always- and quite often don't- have the time/money/stability to upkeep another friendship beyond mere acquaintance. If that is true at the beginning of a relationship, how long will it go before it's dropped? How much affection will amass before the sudden realization that days have gone by without saying a word to that individual? Or, an act of friendship in comparison. That happens, and the friendship dies. It is not so easily reborn. No matter the good intentions for beginning- how painful, sorrowful, regrettable, and avoidable it all could be.
My plea is simply this: If you care for people, consider that you may not be beneficial for them.
That's not an easy choice, and I'm not asking you to follow my own decisions. I am vastly inexperienced with a worldview to match; too impressionable still, and overly ideological.
To continue, the idea is not that one can't be beneficial to another, but what the end impact can be. Allowing a friendship to be born only to be cut off a month later (or similar time-frame aka a few weeks to several months), at first the benefits of your friendship outweigh the break... but a ceased friendship is the sort of thing that one remembers again and again down the road. Circumstances, future friendships. Mature individuals have the capacity to see the past as it was and accept what happened and what the friendship really was, but a ceased friendship is the sort of thing that can form the heart-rock of a bitter pain and anger against the ideals of future friends. I am of course speaking specifically in conjunction to Christian characters when mentioning "ideals", but the same applies to others as well. It bears noting that ideals are not the only future thing to garner bitterness, but that one can easily see the change in befriendment at all in the first place. It only takes so many tries before each reaches the realization of human folly and insufficiency. We can not meet each others needs any more than we can meet our own.
This carries over into relationships tinged with romantic intent as well, and I don't believe that (if willing) people can't tell the difference between budding affection in friendship or a budding love interest. The one may be nearly obscured by the other, but godly and thorough inspection uncovers many things left unchecked. Isn't there love in friendship as well? Yet a different kind, as all inherently know.
The risk and danger in allowing more romantic friendships to form is simultaneously the same and different from normal friendship; for there is added emotional consequences in every way. I would not pretend to understand entirely the pain of breaking up, or the rapture of beginning. Many things I don't know, but have observed. I don't choose to doubt the intentions of those in relationships, or allowing new beginnings when not, but I consider the outcome a serious matter that can't be ignored beforehand. With that in mind, it's very possible to be friends for quite some time before the possibility exists that maybe the relationship is desired to be more. At the end there is marriage or separation, and that's an acceptable outcome in the right context. Things roll back to what's been said already though, I have to consider that I may not be beneficial for them. Am I emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and financially in a position where marriage is an option? That wouldn't be like taking off in a plane with low fuel and no parachutes?
Because I have yet to see two people embarking on a romantic venture return to their original friendship. It does not happen. Even between the most godly, mature friendship is affected in a way that can never be put back even if it is not destroyed like the majority that anyone can see. I tread on ground I do not know, merely suggesting a consequence based off consistent results. Whether that resonates with your own experiences, I trust you will know.
So my plea: If you care for people, consider the outcome of engaging your life with theirs.
I do not save people, Jesus saves. I do not change hearts, God changes hearts. I am to make disciples and be a witness to the truth, an overflowing recess of God's love for the lost. Consider if that is accomplished via making so many friends that many are inadvertently cut off and left.
Philippians 3:12
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
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