The Reality Is
Welcome to "The Reality Is," a podcast where the pastors of Crossroads Community Church gather to discuss the practical application of biblical principles in our daily lives. Join us as we explore how faith can guide us through the challenges and triumphs of real life. Whether it's relationships, work, or personal growth, we're here to help you live out your faith meaningfully. This podcast's premise is about how to apply biblical principles to our everyday lives. Tune in for insightful conversations that inspire and empower you to pursue Christ with every moment of your life.
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The Reality Is
The Reality of Friendship: From Bald Heads to Biblical Bonds
Join Joey and Richard as they chat about everything from the quirky question of whether bald heads need shampoo to the deep stuff about what makes a friendship really stick, Bible style. They share personal stories, laugh a lot, and dive into why forgiving, being real with each other, and even how social media fits into our friendships matter. If you've ever wondered how to keep a friendship strong through life's ups and downs, or just want to hear two friends talk about life, faith, and why relationships are super important, this is the episode for you. Grab a seat, tune in, and let's get real about friends.
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And I think a lot of the key to some of the relationships that are falling apart is because people aren't forgiving each other in their relationships, and that's an important element when it comes to having a tight relationship. There will be times you are going to be hurt. We know that, that's an automatic. You will be hurt, but do you choose to forgive or do you choose to be the person who's just going to pout and walk away and say I'm done with it? Right? Thank you for joining us here on the Reality Is podcast, where we're here to talk about real life and real faith.
Speaker 1:My name is Joey. I'm here with my buddy, richard, and we were just talking about real life. So I was telling Richard I had somebody come up to me last week because they admired how beautiful our heads were, because we have nice bald heads, and said so do you use shampoo on your head or body wash? And so I was explaining since men have 17 in one soap, it doesn't matter, we use that. But then this guy right here says hey, joey, what about mane and tail? I got to talking about back when I actually had a mane and tail on my head. I used to have long hair. Absolutely, I use that. And then you said, well, yeah, back in my day and a lot of people don't know this but you actually had long hair with a ponytail.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it came down to about shoulder, yeah, and I kind of wore a ponytail full beard. It was part of my life at the time. It worked for me, I bet.
Speaker 1:You looked intimidating, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Well, the problem is Joy did not want to share her hair care products with me. Always upset me that I had to get my own. Yeah, when I found out that I couldn't have a ponytail anymore, I went to patrol. I said, well, I'm just going to shave my head, and that's pretty much where we've been since.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so for what? 20-plus years? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It grew out for a little while, but most of the time I've maintained it.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember when was the time I shaved? Because it was just for me, it was just fun. I was like, oh, let me shave my head. And I did it, and it ended up being my look for years now. Oh, wow, Well, we're here to talk about friendship today, and you and I joke.
Speaker 1:We said the Bible says in order to have friends, you have to be friendly. And we were like, well, since neither one of us are friendly, what are we going to do about this? How are we going to have this conversation? But anybody that knows you and anybody that knows me know, man, we'll talk to anybody. There's no such thing as a stranger in our life. But just because we can talk to anybody and we are friendly to people, that doesn't mean that's what a friend is.
Speaker 1:And so, as often I look up the dictionary definition, and this one had a lot. In the Webster's Dictionary it said a friendship is a person who is attached to another by affection or esteem, one that is not hostile—poor thing over there—one that favors or promotes something such as a charity. Charity or a favored companion. And so those were the dictionary definitions.
Speaker 1:And as we look in the Bible, clearly I know Jesus gave us the ultimate example of what it means to be a friend. He said in John 15, 13, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend. And I thought, man, that's a great biblical definition. But even this morning we were talking friendship. Man, there's so many different roads that we could take in discussing what it means to be a friend, and so I know we don't have all the time in the world to talk about friendship, but we do have some time to truly talk about what it means to be a friend, what friendship looks like from a biblical perspective, and so that's where I just want to ask you to talk to us about biblical friendship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to think through. When we talk about friendship, you know, one of the first things we always hear is social media and my friends.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, got thousands.
Speaker 2:Exactly People you never met, never heard from, and they de-friend you and you know, and on and on we could go. So we've really got a skewed idea of what friendship is. When we, of course, through the COVID and started being secluded and friendships really began to suffer at that point Let me just say social contact suffered at that point and then, unfortunately, many people's idea of friendship suffered at that point. So I think we have to go back and we have to really consider what friendship is and not acquaintances and all of us are always going to have a lot of acquaintances and we'll talk more about that in a few moments, about kind of those stages of friendship.
Speaker 2:But when we talk about friendship we talk about that person in just lay terms. First, if you will, we talk about that person that knows everything about you and they're still your friend. They know you're good, you're bad, you're ugly, but yet they're still your friend. And you know my papa. He always said and that would be my grandfather, of course a lot of people in the South refer to him as papa but papa, he always told me son, if you can get out of this world and count your real friends, your true friends, on one hand, you've been successful in life, and when we talk about somebody that knows all your goods, your bad and your ugly, and they're still your friend and they'll go to bat for you through thick and thin, then those are few and far between Most of what we call friends. Unfortunately, they use you as long as you're good for them and then they discard you when you're not good for them anymore.
Speaker 2:You're good for them and then they discard you when you're not good for them anymore, and many times they may be coworkers. They may be people that you see at the ball field.
Speaker 1:They may be people that you live with Maybe you went to school with that. You had relationships established over the years.
Speaker 2:I mean think about when we talk about friendship. When you graduated high school, you remember the last senior day? Uh-huh, and how many people did you say I'll never forget you, Uh-huh Can you remember them?
Speaker 1:now, I was going to say do you remember any of them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, same thing in college, right? You walk around the last week of college and, oh, we'll be friends forever, and that lasts until you start your graduate degree or your job, whichever came next. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And life happens, my wife and I, we looked at our wedding picture and all the people that signed the picture and all these people that signed things and everything. And it's funny because we look back now, 21 years later, and we go and we look at the picture and we go man, we haven't been in touch with this person. This person, like, the only people we're still in touch with literally are our family members, and that's what's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah so this is the world's idea of friends, and we're going to talk about that because I don't want to confuse that, as if these people were not ever important to us. Of course not, but when we're talking about friendship Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 20 says but when we're talking about friendship, Proverbs 13, verse 20 says he who walks with a wise man will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed. And so when we're talking about friendship, we're talking about those people that make us wise in life or those people that make us foolish in life, and you've got to pick your friends accordingly. We've always heard right, you are what you eat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I'm a great big Oreo or Reese's Custard.
Speaker 2:That's why I look like peanut butter, exactly so moving on. But you are what you eat, but guess what? You're also who you hang out with. Yeah, very true.
Speaker 2:And so when we talk about friendship, proverbs 22, verses 24 and 25, tells us make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.
Speaker 2:And so when we're talking about friendship, the people you choose to associate with on your for lack of a better word your inner circle, those people that can speak into your life, and that's a whole different level of friendship. There's very few people that should achieve that level of being able to speak into your life in the way that we're going to talk about today. And so you become like that person. And, of course, the verse you and I've used many times in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, bad company corrupts good morals. And so when we're talking about all of these ideas of friendship, and then we go back to what you read a moment ago, where Christ reminds us that a true friend sticks closer than a brother, Closer than a brother A true friend lays down his life for another and, of course, in the example of Christ, we're seeing the literal laying down of a life, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And he established the benchmark, if you will, for what a true friend is. But the laying down of a life, I think when we broaden that out a little bit, says that a true friend is that friend that is there, Even if it's an inconvenience to them. They're there, and I think that's where we need to really focus our time on is what does that true friend look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, mentioning that you reminded me of in the Old Testament, it was Jonathan and David. Now here's an inconvenient relationship, right? Because David is being sought after by his dad, you know, and his dad is upset his son for wanting to befriend this guy David, and he was like man, we're like brothers, we're not just friends, we are really close, and it was very inconvenient for Jonathan to be his friend. Yet he did everything, put himself out there, put himself at risk, risking his own life, to help save his friend David from certain death that was coming in his life. That's what you're talking about laying yourself out there for somebody.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, you go to the example you're talking about there and you see, Jonathan would have been in the same situation as David had his dad discovered what he was doing, but the friendship was deeper than that of a family bond. It was a friendship that Jonathan could not abandon, his friend, and that is the friend that sticks closer than a brother.
Speaker 2:Those friends are very few in life, and so I think we have to see that and understand Our friends come in cycles, if you will. Several years ago I was actually leading in a men's conference and talking about friendship, and Psychology Today put an article out and it kind of broke down different methodologies or tracks of friends. I'm certainly not recommending that as a good reading, but it was an article that I read and it talked about these. Let me just break these down real quickly and so we can kind of think through.
Speaker 2:First there's historical friends. These are the ones that spent in your life a long period of time. 21 years ago they signed your marriage picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and you may not have regular contact with them, but they still remember you, you still remember them, we still remember them, and what's great about those type of friends is, if we spoke to each other on the phone, we'd pick right up, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I mean, of course, being from Asheville, north Carolina. Every now and then, my wife and I will be back in the Asheville area and I'll run into someone I went to high school with or someone I worked with, or something like that. Run into someone I went to high school with or someone I worked with, or something like that, and those are historical friends. Those are people that you have a connection with. Then there are friends that you meet and develop that connection with during the difficult times in life. You ever hear the old saying misery loves company, and so, when you're going through certain hardships and certain difficulties, these are the people that you connect with. Typically, these are people you connect with for a short period of time, while you're going through, maybe, a medical treatment, while you're going through a financial crisis, family crisis, whatever, and so these are people that you meet in that brief time, but they make a lifelong impact on you, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:And so then there's, unfortunately, the ones that most of us call friends, friends of convenience. This is just built on proximity. Okay, happens to be my neighbor, happens to be someone who is close in some way, maybe a coworker, whatever, but just by proximity we become friends. And again, it's just convenience If it's convenient, then I'll be there. Then there's what we call intergenerational, and these are those people in the same chapter of life. Okay, and so these are. Just when you first have kids, you begin to gravitate to people that have kids that age. Now, when you get like you and you've got them from their 20s to their 30s, I'm like who do you gravitate to?
Speaker 1:That's real hard because now our friends are like 20 years younger than us, but they're still our friends because we have like the life situation together.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh, you've got a three-year-old, we've got a three-year-old too, and they're like that's not your grandkid, no, it's not my grandkid Different sermon, but you have these friends that you have things in common with yeah, absolutely, but then friends of the heart, and that's really where we want to focus. And I know that was a lot, but I just wanted people to understand that there's a lot of different reasons that people come into our life Absolutely, but the ones that need to be in our life are those friends of the heart. In Proverbs 18, 24, a man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, and that's the friend of the heart. And so I think what is required to have that I mean, when we talk about that kind of friend, that friend that's there through thick and thin, that friend that, as we said, knows everything about us, but still there.
Speaker 1:Still chooses to be your friend, still chooses to stay next to you and go through the situations that you're in.
Speaker 2:So how do we develop?
Speaker 1:that, yeah, and that's exactly what I was going to ask you, because a lot of people think, oh, that's developed over years of time and I can testify just with the relationship you and I have with each other, it doesn't take that long to develop that type of relationship. Before you became the pastor of this church, we had a connection with each other when we first met and you took me out and said hey, I want to sit you down, I just want to encourage you, I want to sit you down, let's go have some coffee, let's go have something together. And from the minute we sat down we connected and we had been friends since. And then you came on to staff, you became the pastor, and our relationship just became as close as it could ever be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the reason that is is that first idea of friendship there's got to be a common connection, a common bond, and that bond has to be Jesus Christ. Yes, indeed, we connected immediately over the things of God and out of that we began to connect far beyond that and we've been friends, as you said, through thick and thin. It's not just a word. It's not just something we say. No, I mean, you know everything about me. I know everything.
Speaker 2:You dropped a tree on me, okay, and I had tree on me, okay, and I had to run for my life. We're still friends, but in reality that was your fault. So that's my story, and without pictures and witnesses that's where we're going.
Speaker 2:We were the only two there, but you're correct, I saw the tree down about, hit you with it a big tree and did knock your barn down, and yet we're still friends Absolutely. So where do friends like that come from? You know, it begins with developing communication, yeah, and we're going to get into some scripture. But let me just say that when you talk about communication, communication goes through a lot of different levels, a lot of different stages, especially in friendship. It kind of starts with cliche communication, yeah yes indeed.
Speaker 2:How are you? I'm fine. How's your week? Good. You know well how's the weather.
Speaker 1:Hot.
Speaker 2:You know, and so it's just cliche communication. There's nothing that even gets any surface whatsoever, Absolutely. As you begin to develop some kind of connection with someone, it kind of moves to fact communication. Fact communication is something going on in the news, something going on in the world, where you're going a little deeper kind of your opinion about something, about what's happening. Then it moves to belief communication. It kind of moves beyond your opinion to where you stand. To be honest with you, this is where we lose most people, Because I can throw out the oh yeah, the weather's good, the weather's bad.
Speaker 1:I can throw out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a terrible thing that happened. But when I move to my belief system, then, honestly, that's going to separate a lot of people and that belief system is where we begin to disconnect. If we stay connected there, it moves to the feeling system, or feeling communication, and that's where I feel free to begin to tell you hey, I'm really struggling in this area of my life, or I'm struggling and I'm depressed, or I'm happy, and this is why. So it moves to that feeling communication and then that brings us to the transparency. If we're going to have friends, we've got to get to transparency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and transparency is one of the most difficult things we get to. And you know, we've heard for years that men have a hard time getting to transparency. Yes, indeed, everybody has a hard time getting to transparency and, believe me, social media has not helped Not at all. You get your kids clean and your house clean for 30 seconds and you snap that picture and you post it. So everybody thinks that's the way your life is. Um, transparency, um, goes beyond that and it's where we need to be. So kind of a lot of setup, if you will. Yeah, but how do we get to that? How do we move ourselves to being transparent, where we can develop true biblical friendships.
Speaker 1:What it sounds like. There's pride that's in your life that says, hey, I just don't want this person to know these type of things about me because I want them to think of me a certain way. And the reality is we're not like that. We're lying to ourselves, we're lying to other people if we aren't just straight up, honest and focused on hey, I'm establishing a relationship here. And if I really want this person to speak into my life, I've got to be open with them so that they can speak into my life. And they have to know, man, I'm suffering, man, I'm hurting, man, I'm going through some things. This is a challenge that's happening in my life right now. And then a real friend is going to be able to talk to you, pray with you, not do the cliche all right, man, I'll pray for you, and then walk away but say, hey, man, can I pray for you? And then start praying right now, which is what you often do. You say, hey, let me pray for you, and then you just go into a prayer.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a matter of that transparency. It's a matter of opening ourselves up, now, one of the things that, unfortunately, even in church circles, we won't open ourselves, because opening ourselves literally exposes, and when we expose ourselves we put ourselves in that danger, and I think there's some things that I want to circle back on on that in a minute. But we don't do that because the very people that are supposed to rally to me and have compassion, love and concern are the very ones that will unfortunately turn Even in churches.
Speaker 2:We put our trust in people yes, we do and the very people we put our trust in are the very ones that unfortunately attack and the ones that do harm and not good, and we've all been there. I mean, I hear it all the time. People go well, I can't go to church because someone hurt me, and I go. Well, do you go to work? Because I'm pretty sure you've been hurt there before too, and so I get it, though I hear what they're saying.
Speaker 1:And it does hurt. I mean somebody that's supposed to be your friend, somebody that you're trusting, somebody that's a church-going believer in Christ does something to hurt your feelings. That's a real deep cut. That hurts really bad.
Speaker 2:And I agree with you, they hurt your feelings. But I go beyond that, I go a little deeper in the aspect that they violate your trust. Yeah, okay, there's been people in my life that were in my circle, if you will, and all of us have been there, but I can point to some specific examples where they violated my trust, and once that happens, there's a pain that can't be described there, and so, once that occurs, how do we get past that and how do we define that? And so I think that's why this idea of friendship is so important. I think one of the number one things I hear from especially young people and when you're old, like me, everybody's young and so especially younger people coming into our church which, thank God, we have so many younger people coming in and one of the things that I hear is I'm looking for Christian friends, and then that's almost immediately followed with how do I do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're hurting today. We're hurting for friendships, we're hurting for connections. We've become an isolated people.
Speaker 1:Very much so and, as you said before, covid didn't really help with that because it isolated us even more. And here we are trying to connect. We are people who are created to connect, right Like we. We want that. We want that interaction, you know, with other people, and yet we so far, right now what I'm looking at in this generation we're doing everything to disconnect with each other. I can't tell you what the social media and phones and everything has done. Now, this is not a bad thing. Phones are a great thing. We use them all the time we need them. But the minute I discover that I'm watching people communicate through their phones while they're sitting at the table next to each other, you've really broken down the way to communicate. You've broken down what it really means to be a friend, because you've isolated the word you said, you've isolated yourself from actually connecting with somebody.
Speaker 2:Well, and I wish I could say that I did it differently. But it's not uncommon for my wife to say, hey, so-and-so, has this going on in their life Maybe it's health or family or whatever somebody in the church and she'll say, did you speak to them? And I go, yeah, I checked on them today, I sent them a text and we call that communication. Or I sent them an email and we put ourselves in these boxes of what I would just argue we've totally lost friendship. It kind of goes back to the front porch. Days are gone and so how do we get back there?
Speaker 2:I think, if you think about it, Proverbs, the book of wisdom, is full of different ways to have friends and what friendship means, I guess is a better way to put that. And let me just give some that I think we need to consider Again. Proverbs, chapter 17 and verse 17, reminds us that wise friends are dependable. Foolish ones are fair weather at best. It tells us, a friend loves at all time. A brother is born for adversity. Yeah, and we have so many fair weather people in our life. Absolutely, and I hate wearing it this way, but as long as you're good for me, you can stay around when I have no benefit from you any longer, when I'm not gaining from you being around, then I'll move to the next person that can do something.
Speaker 1:They come and go. Yeah, and that's where it really hurts, because you thought you've connected with somebody, you thought everything was going fine, and then something happens in your life. You're no longer able to be there for that person in the way they want you to be there, and so now they just can't be around you anymore and the friendship is now cut. That's not a real friend.
Speaker 2:And I think we've all been there where there were people close to you that you put your neck out for them, you went the extra mile for them, you poured yourself into them, for them, you poured yourself into them and then the moment they felt like they could benefit from something over here more than they could benefit, boy, you were done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're the back door and unfortunately we've all had that happen to us. And those are not friends that were born for adversity. They're the ones that are fair weather at best. And we got to realize there's people like that out there and we have to recognize that. That's the reason, again, that we're told our associations matter. Now, it doesn't mean that we're going to throw all these people away, we're not going to talk to them, we're not going to have anything to do with them, but you got to know who your friends are and you got to know how you're building those friendships, and I would argue that any friendship built with Christ at the center, this should never happen, although it does it does it happens all the time.
Speaker 1:I mean, bible tells us and this is I know it's a misquoted verse a lot, but there's still some truth to this do to others as you would have them do to you in Luke 6. This is how we are supposed to be treating our friends. I'm going to treat you the way I would love for you to treat me, and that doesn't mean oh okay, now something's happening in your life and so I'm going to just pull away from you. No, if something's happening in my life, I want you to be there for me. So if I see something happen in your life, guess what I'm going to do I'm going to be there for you, because that's what I would want you to do for me.
Speaker 2:And I think that is exactly what it means. When a friend loves at all times, yes, and to have a friend that loves at all times, is that friend that when you're having that bad day and you bark or growl at them, they tell you to put your big boy pants on and get over it? They love you enough to speak into your life. They love you enough to be there. When others may abandon, others may walk away, they stay with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes indeed, others may walk away, they stay with you. Yeah yes indeed.
Speaker 2:And I think we have to start looking at those people in our life that stay with us and those people that have been with us. I have a guy that I worked with in law enforcement and I talked to him about once a year. But I can tell you right now, if, if I called, if I called Kevin right now and said I have a need, I I promise you he would drop whatever he had to drop and he wouldn't be there meet the need. Yeah, and that's, that's that friend, that time and distance can't separate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's just be clear about that.
Speaker 1:A friend doesn't have to talk every day. This isn't. Oh, in order to be my friend, we have to constantly communicate with each other. No, it's just knowing I've got a brother in my life who's so dear to me. If I'm going through something, I pick up the phone, doesn't matter where they are. It's going to be just like I shared with you. So are it's going to be just like I shared with you.
Speaker 1:So you know, my kids went down to Florida and ended up. Hey, they had a hotel, they booked a hotel, and then they get there and the hotel tells them oh, you're not of age, you don't get to stay here, you don't have a place to stay now. And they're stuck in Florida with no place to go. What do I do? People I haven't spoken to in a while because I haven't lived in Florida in a while, people I haven't seen in a while, pick up the phone and say here's the situation I'm in. Let me tell you, everybody who I called showed up and they were there for my kids, so much so that my kids went wow, daddy, you have some really good friends. Yes, and that's not something that, oh, we have to talk every day in order for that to happen. No, it was a need. These are dear friends of mine. I was able to call on them. Boom, they showed up and they were there.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I found people like me better when they don't talk to me. But you know it is. It is that person. I'm sorry Because everybody's laughing, because everybody knows how true that is. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:What can I say?
Speaker 2:When we have those kinds of friends, when we have those people that we can call on, I think we've built those exactly the way the Scripture tells us. They're born for the adversity and they're there, and we need to understand that. Proverbs 19.22 goes one step further. It says what is desired in a man is kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar. Yes, and listen to what he's saying, because he's saying it's not the one that can give you something, as long as you're worth something to them. Rather, they have anything physically to give you or monetarily to give you. That person is there for you and he says listen, you'd rather have this poor man around you than a liar who says they're your friend, but their actions prove differently.
Speaker 2:And again, unfortunately, we've all seen that. And so we need to think about our friends. First of all, need to show the character of God. They need to have character in their life, that that they are the same and they don't blow with the wind. They're not my friend today, and then come and go, and so I think that's the first thing. Another thing in Proverbs, wise friends are honest about their struggles with one another.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are.
Speaker 2:Foolish friends hide it. And so Proverbs 28, verse 13, says he who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. And so when I have wise friends in my life, I'm able to share these things, I'm able to share what's happening in a transparent way that we talked about, and I don't have to worry about it going any further. I don't have to worry about it going any further. I don't have to worry about being viewed differently. Now, I didn't say they're going to say, oh, that's okay, but I know they're going to love me regardless and they're going to be there regardless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Not justifying what you're doing, because what you're doing is wrong, but I am going to be there for you and help you through it, so that you can conquer whatever you're trying to go through in your life.
Speaker 2:Well, it puts someone in your life you're accountable to. It puts someone in your life that cares enough for you to speak into your life. You know, accountability has become a buzzword in Christian circles and, I'll be truthful with you, most people, I don't think, even know what it means. It means that we're going to commiserate and be miserable together and that's what too many see, and that's not what it means.
Speaker 2:What happens for too many of us is, instead of allowing ourselves to have that person that speaks into our life, we just play the avoidance game. So those steps of communications we talked about earlier, I'll kind of stay in that cliche with you. I might move to talking a little bit about something in the world, but anything beyond that I got nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can't converse about that.
Speaker 2:And it kind of goes back to they just shut up, they don't continue the conversation, or they play the we game. You know, we, we struggle, we, we, we, well, no, we don't, we may. But you know, if, if I'm your friend and we're having that conversation, it's the I, not the we, that matters. It's the I, not the we, that matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And what do you say to those people who have a good friendship? Something has happened in the friendship and now they've been hurt, right? Not I'm just going to walk away from it, but somebody in the relationship hurt me. How do you rebuild that relationship? Right, like, how do you restore that? Because you know we've had a good thing going and then you did something to hurt me. And I looked in. It says bear with each other and forgive. Forgive, as the Lord has forgiven you. That's in Colossians 3.13. And I think a lot of the key to some of the relationships that are falling apart is because people aren't forgiving each other in their relationships, and that's an important element when it comes to having a tight relationship. There will be times you are going to be hurt. We know that, that's an automatic. You will be hurt. But do you choose to forgive or do you choose to be the person who's just going to pout and walk away and say I'm done with that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's twofold, in that Pouting, walking away and saying I'm done is never the answer or the solution.
Speaker 1:So don't, no, let's. Yeah, let me be careful there.
Speaker 2:And so, but here is where we have to go back to, first of all. I think Galatians 6, verses 1 through 3, become bedrock for us at that, and in that it reminds us that you, who are stronger, bear the burdens of the weaker one, and he reminds us that you're not always the strong one. Today, I may be the spiritual one, and I may need to come alongside you, and next week it could be entirely reversed, and so I think that's the first thing you have to remember is that stronger, weaker and coming alongside, being there for one another, that's what develops that friendship, that bond, and he even goes on to say do not be deceived, and so he reminds us that any of us are subject to that. All right. I do believe, though, that you also have to keep in mind the whole 1 Corinthians 15, 33,. Evil company corrupts good morals. The person may just not be the person that needs to be your friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and you know, there have been people that for lack of a better word I don't associate with because their actions spoke louder than their words, and they're just not people I needed in my life. They caused anger in my life and you say, well, they can't cause. Well, they can't cause me to in one sense, but their actions demonstrate that they're not trustworthy. They're gossips, they lie, they cheat, they use, they abuse, on and on. I'm just saying we've all met people like that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, we have.
Speaker 2:And so there reaches a point that you've got to be smart enough that if I stick my hand in the box and the puppy bites me the first time, am I going to stick my hand back in the box. And so I think this is that wise friendship. He says you're a companion of the wise, you become wise. If you're a companion of the fools, you become fools. And so, yes, there are times that you just have to say I'm not going to be ugly, I'm not going to be mean, I'm not going to be un-Christlike, I'm going to pray for I'm going to, but that's not going to be a person that consumes my time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it says in Proverbs 12, 26,. The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray, and that's what you're talking about Exactly You've got to choose your friends wisely and pray about that. And, as you said from the beginning with us, even at the beginning of this podcast, we had a connection that was Jesus. Right, jesus was the bedrock, he was the foundation of where our friendship started and then from there it was able to grow and develop.
Speaker 2:That's choosing a friend wise, yeah, and I will tell you the people, for lack of a better word, that I've had to just say I can't, the ones that that's happened with have. Honestly, it's been an action thing, and it's been where there has been forgiveness, attempt to rebuild and then just a reoccurrence of the same heart, attitudes and actions. You got to choose your friends wisely, yes, you do, and now I want to be careful, though. There's never an excuse or a reason to begin to gossip about someone, to verbally attack someone, someone to verbally attack someone. It's just a matter of me saying this person is not someone that I need in my life right now, because they're not wise, and it's not that they're not beneficial to me. They're not wise, and I think we have to remember that we play a lot of games instead of understanding that our friends matter.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think the next one kind of goes with this Wise friends are trustworthy, foolish friends are gossips. Proverbs 16, 28 says A perverse man sows strife and a whisperer separates the best of friends. And so, you know, you've got to be careful who you put in your life and you got to say, okay, is this person trustworthy If I can fight in you, if you and I are friends and I can fight something in you that should be between us, and then it's on the front page. Tomorrow. I've got to decide what am.
Speaker 1:I doing there and I think so many people have been hurt in that way, exactly Because I'm meeting with a couple of people right now and they always feel like they have to say. They always feel like they have to say okay, now, what I'm saying is between us, and I assure them every time we're together I say look, man, our conversations are private. It's between me and you. I'm not running around telling everybody else what you're going through. This is between me and you. This is how we build our relationship with each other.
Speaker 2:But so many people have been hurt in that exact way that you're talking about, and that's why we have to be trustworthy, and I mean we can't waver from that. And another idea is wise friends lovingly confront. Foolish friends are spiritual wimps. Proverbs 27.6 says faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. There's plenty of people in your life that'll tell you what you want to hear and they're not going to help you one bit. And we need people in our life that are our friends, care enough, love us enough to speak truth into our life. If you see me on a path that is headed for destruction, you ask me about it. We're accountability partners on the internet on Covenant Eyes, and if something pops up, and every time I see something.
Speaker 1:I'll go dude. Really, why are you looking at this? It's nothing bad. Really, you're looking at portable toilets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like what's that? You know, I have a boat, yeah exactly Big sense A boat without a toilet.
Speaker 2:And so when you need people, though, that will be bold enough, no matter who you are, to lovingly confront you Absolutely. If any of us can have a bad day, yeah, of course. And so if you're just having a bad day, then let you have a bad day. If you're being a jerk, somebody needs to tell you you're being a jerk, and if that's spoken out of love, then you can speak into someone's life, and when your track record says I've been with you through thick and thin, then you have the ability to speak into that. The kisses of an enemy how many of us have been kissed by the enemy and they hurt. And so this is what you're talking about that pain that so many have from that. Proverbs 27, 17 is a verse that we've used so many times in so many ways. As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. How does iron sharpen iron?
Speaker 1:Cheek, cheek, cheek. It leaves sparks, it hurts, it makes a lot of clanging, a lot of banging going on.
Speaker 2:it takes friction, yeah and and the reason you and I have developed such a strong friendship and what the world would say couldn't happen in just two years, yeah, the reason that has is because we've sharpened one another absolutely. And and there's been some friction, and I mean, whose fault was the tree? You know we could keep going with that. So I mean seriously, we have challenged each other in hard topics and hard subjects. We've walked with one another in hardships and struggles and it's iron sharpens iron. Yes, indeed, and you know I have man.
Speaker 2:I've got one of my closest friends. We've been friends for years. It's a guy named Scott and I mean I'm in church today because of him, and we've always sharpened one another like this. The sparks have flown in our relationship over 30 years, but it's necessary, and when somebody's walked with you that long, it's necessary. As you look at that, wise friends also know when to cut you some slack, though Foolish friends they develop that cop mentality. I got you on the ropes, I'm not going to let you up. Proverbs 10, 12 tells us hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins, yeah, and so you need that person in your life that knows when to challenge you, but they also know when to back off a little bit.
Speaker 1:And just encourage you sometimes. Sometimes you need encouragement. 1 Thessalonians says therefore, encourage one another and build each other up. Sometimes we need that. I know you're going through something right now and, yeah, it's your fault Exactly, it's your fault but I don't have to beat you up about it being your fault and that's why you're in it. Let me encourage you.
Speaker 2:Let me help you get out of where you are right now. Well, unfortunately, far too many people, and even Christians, have come up with some very religious and sanitized ways of being a jerk, and so we couch it in all kinds of different ways, but at the end of the day, we're just being a jerk, and you know what. We don't need that and we need to come alongside people. But our wise friends are realists. They don't mind looking us in the eye and being real with us. Proverbs 25, verses 11 and 12, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and settings of silver. They speak at the right time, the right way. They're realists. Yeah, exactly, it's one thing to say okay, you had a bad day yesterday. You're having a bad day today. You had a bad day. I mean, at some point in time you got to get over your bad day.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, let's move on.
Speaker 2:And you need somebody like that, and I know, for the sake of time, I'll do the last one real quickly. Wise friends focus on your heart. Yes, foolish friends only see the surface. Proverbs 20 and verse 5, one of my favorite verses. Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out, and so a true friend is going to spend enough time with you to draw out. It takes time. It takes time to develop that, it takes time to get there.
Speaker 1:And that's the important part. I'm glad you said that, because I was just talking with my men's group the other day. It's like how easy is it for us to interact with people and put on a certain facade, put on a certain face, because you're only spending 10 to 15 minutes tops with them. But when you're spending real quality time with somebody, that's when they get to discover who you really are. Time is so important and are we willing to give up our time to be a friend to someone? I mean, you have to give time. You can't just blow somebody off and expect them to say, oh yeah, we've got this great relationship because we spent 15 minutes with each other this week. That's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:No, and it's not texting and emailing. It's sitting in a room with somebody.
Speaker 1:It's face-to-face time, man.
Speaker 2:It's getting to know them. It's fostering that natural friendship for the glory of God.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so why do we do what we do and why do we have people in our life? And again, I want to be careful because I don't want to be misunderstood. We're going to have acquaintances in all of us.
Speaker 2:I have hundreds and hundreds of people, just as you do. That would be acquaintances. I would use the word friend with them and don't think I'd be betraying when I say that. But there's a level of friendship to be betraying when I say that. But there's a level of friendship that not everyone will get to achieve because you can't spend the time necessary for that with every person in your life. And so what does that look like? I think we covered it quickly. I think we could develop this much further.
Speaker 1:Like we said, we have many roads that we could go and take and really get into a hour hours of conversation about real friendship and what it looks like. But, like we said in the beginning, man, for people who are looking on, going well, I just don't have any friends. Well, are you friendly and are you applying any of these principles that you have talked about in order to establish a friendship so that you can have that? Because people are listening, going well, I don't have that type of relationship that they're talking about. I don't have that relationship with anybody and I say this lovingly and gently. But maybe look at yourself and say are you behaving in the way where you can actually be friendly so that you can have friends? Exactly, and I hope that was gentle enough For you. Yes, that's real cold blooded.
Speaker 2:Yes, it absolutely is. And if you're not showing yourself friendly, if you're not opening yourself up, if you're not putting yourself out there and if you're going to spend your life worrying about being hurt again, then you're not going to have friends. And you're going to be living in surface relationships your entire life, and so at some point you've got to take that chance. You've got to say not everybody is a jerk and you've got to open yourself up for that, because God made us relational and he put people in our life for a reason and we can't cut those off.
Speaker 1:I remember telling you when we first got together I said, man, I've just been hurt by so many people. And you and I were talking with each other and our relationship was just starting and we were just in the beginning and you had let me know clearly, bro, you're still going to have to open up yourself and be willing to be hurt and trust trust the relationship that's being built here. Because I was at a point in my life, honestly, when we met and you know this that I was just I was cut off the people and I said, man, I've just been hurt way too many times, I'm done, I don't want to go through the hurt anymore. And you lovingly challenged me and said you've still got to open up yourself, to be willing to be hurt so that you can establish a good, deep relationship.
Speaker 2:I think the fear of being hurt causes us to miss what God has for us, and you know, there's nothing like those close, dear friends, and so we can't let the enemy win that one. And we let him win it when we barricade ourselves out and away from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I know we have literally gone over the time that we're supposed to, but I still need you to just close us out, tell us the reality of having a real friend.
Speaker 2:Right. I think, as we said, the reality is having that friend that knows everything about you and they're still there, that friend that sticks closer than a brother. I like what you brought out when you reminded us that you got to pick your friends. You got to make sure that you're not bringing the wrong people into your life. 1 Corinthians 15, 33 always has to ring true.
Speaker 2:The wrong company is going to be a problem, but the reality is I cannot let the fact that someone hurt me in the past prevent me from letting the people that God's bringing into my life now impact me so important. And so let's not live in the past, let's live in the present, let's not put God in a box and let's trust him to bring people in. But for that to happen, I've got to show myself friendly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, indeed Appreciate that, and you said earlier today, before we even were on the podcast, that we were talking about friendship, and friendship is a great thing, but what happens after friendship is really important, and you brought this word up a lot. You kept saying accountability. Accountability is such an important word, and so I think next week let's actually get into what accountability looks like, if you're okay with that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because the only way to have this true friendship is to make yourself accountable, and I think they go hand-in-hand. We definitely want to go there.
Speaker 1:Yes, indeed, I love that man. Thank you so much and thank you guys for joining us here on the Reality Is podcast, where we talk about real life and real faith. Hey, we want to ask you guys to do us a favor. Go on like subscribe, let us know that you're there so that we can more effectively find out what you guys would like to talk about. Go in the comments and actually tell us what you think it means to be a friend and what friendship means to you. We'd love to hear from you. For now, we'd like to say God bless you and have a wonderful day. We'll see you next week.