What's a Friend?

Well hello again friends, Dick Foth, with stories to make sense of it all. And we're still in the book. We'll be in the book for quite some time. You say, what book? Well, it's the one Ruth and I did a couple of years back, called Known, finding deep friendships in a shallow world. We like that title and interestingly enough, this time we're talking about that chapter on friendship. In the book it's chapter three, and the simple title is What's a Friend. I think friendship may be one of my top three, well not maybe, it's one of my top three topics of all time because it's so essential to what it means to be human, to what it means to be in community, to what it means to be connected in a day of huge disconnectedness. So here we are in Colorado, it's sort of a great day, it's going to be a pretty cool week here in the High Plains, butt it up against the Rocky Mountains. I think on the weekend it's supposed to, the highest supposed to be nine above zero, and the night it's going to be nine below zero. So you folks in Florida and California eat your hearts out, there we go. So let's get on with it, What's a Friend. Chapter three, What's a Friend. When the ways of friends converge, the whole world looks like home for an hour. Herman Hesse. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I heard from my father, I have made known to you. Jesus of Nazareth, John 15, 15. My favorite accolade is my friend. I even like it in Spanish, me amigo and French monomy. I probably like it in 53 other languages if I knew them. It is shouted with joy across an airport terminal or whispered through tears at a graveside. It sings a song the whole world knows. In our day, the word friend has been emptied of its richness. It's an overused word, much like love. I love pizza in the Pacific Ocean. I love a Colorado sunset in the feel of cold mountain air on my face. Oh, and I love God and my kids. What does saying, yeah, we're friends mean today. I've heard deep friendship defined as two people sitting together for hours and silence without feeling awkward. Or a guy like me who finds it pretty tough to sit in silence for too long. That sounds incredibly hard. But beyond introversion or extroversion, the ability to sit in comfortable silence with someone is a pretty obvious example of feeling fully at home with one another. There isn't a need to entertain or be entertained. Just spending that time together is enough. It's a kind of quiet knowing. So the question is, how can we get to that place with loved ones co-workers or neighbors? Doesn't it make sense that if God designs us for a relationship, real friendship is fed by a growing experience of God's love? When we know down deep that we are loved, accepted and affirmed by the God who created us and knows all about us, we're free to give ourselves to others. Ruth's notes from a talk, Dr. Lloyd Ogleby later chaplain of the United States Senate, gave in our college chapel in the 1980s reference his words, don't be a stingy receiver. Let God love you. When you let God love you, you open up enough to let people love you. That's the best gift you can give them. Why is that idea so pivotal for human relationship? If you don't remember anything else from this book, please remember this statement. If we are not experiencing God's love, we will always be seeking from others, what only God can give, they will always fail us because we have expectations from the friendship that they cannot meet. Henry now on the scholar mystic and in his later years caregiver elaborates on this point, I discovered the real problem, expecting from a friend what only Christ can give. Friendship requires closeness, affection, support, and mutual encouragement, but also distance space to grow, freedom to be different and solitude. To nurture both aspects of a relationship we must experience a deeper and more lasting affirmation than any human relationship can offer. When we truly love God and share in his glory, our relationships lose their compulsive character. Unrealistic expectations are killers. That's why job descriptions and performance standards are important in the business world. That's why quality, primarital counseling is critical. That's why good information is key when you're getting physical therapy for the calf muscle. You tore and training for a half marathon. Friends must be managed. The question here is, what can I expect from a friendship? Well, that depends on what kind of friendship you're seeking. There are all different kinds of friendship. Each one is inherently good. Our friends can't and can't holdling if powerfully impacted us with their thoughts on this subject. Mentor mentee is a beginning place for many friendships in the body of Christ. Our term, God moves us into and out of many lives and we give ourselves to each other when we're together. Historical. We were very important in each other's lives at some point in our histories, but for various reasons we're not a priority for each other at present. Dormant. We are very important in each other's lives, but because of circumstances, for example, raising a family in another part of the world, in this season of life, we're not able to interact or be together often, but this will change in the next season of life. Constant. These are the special few friends with whom we have the most intimacy. Two characteristics of these are that we mutually initiate being together and we mutually submit our lives to each other. These are the special few with whom we have the greatest degree of intimacy. These are the friends we all long for and few have. Our idea of constant friendship intrigues me. These are the friends we all long for and few have. Yet when people do have constant friends, it is literally life-giving. A lengthy scientific study has proven it. Originally called the Grant Study, it now is called the Harvard Study of Adult Development. From 1938 to 1940, a medical team selected 268 sophomore men from Harvard for a longitudinal study on a aging. It ran in tandem with the Gluk study, which selected 456 non-delinquent young men from Boston's inner city. Amazingly, the study has been maintained for over 75 years. Every two years, interviews were conducted with participants and their spouses and kids. Blood samples taken, even brain scans made. Sixty of the original men are still alive at this writing. The latest of the program's four directors, Dr. Robert Waldinger, spoke about the findings in a TED Talk he gave in Boston in December 2015. I love his title, What Makes a Good Life, Lessons From the Longest Study on Happiness. It is a picture of what we might expect of life looking ahead for eight decades. At the outset of the study, all the men asked, what do you think in your lifetime would bring you happiness? The overwhelming majority said, money, fame, and achievement. Recently the same question was asked of a broad sampling of millennials. Their answers were exactly the same. However, what the study found after 75 years of monitoring the participants had very little to do with fortune, fame, or climbing the corporate ladder. The message was simple and clear and I quote, good relationships, keep us happier and healthier, period. After 75 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, the findings confirm what Genesis has always declared it is not good for the man to be alone. Who says faith in science aren't compatible? The particulars the Dr. Waldinger presented are fascinating. One, social connections are really good for us. People who are socially connected to family, friends, and community are happier, physically healthier, and live longer. Two, the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic. It kills. Lonely people are less happy. Their health declines earlier in midlife, brain function declines, and they live shorter lives. Three, the quality of close relationships makes the difference. Bad relationships are destructive, good relationships are protective. The predictor of long life at age 50 was not cholesterol levels, but satisfaction levels. How satisfied they were at age 50 with their relationships predicted how healthy they would be at 80. Good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. A securely attached relationship to another person in one's 80s has a protective effect. If you really feel you can count on another person in a time of need, your memory stays sharper longer. The relationship doesn't have to be smooth, most good ones experience bumps on the road. It just has to answer the question. Can I count on you in the affirmative? The opposite is also true, when there is no one to count on, the memory goes. Five, the hard work of tending to family and friends is messy, complicated, lifelong, never ending. Life is work, without question. In life, if we work at the quality of our relationships, they turn out to be protective and life giving. So in our older years, when we replace workmates with playmates, we do better. If the actual cycle of friendships goes from playmates to classmates to workmates and back to playmates, a friend gives us someone to count on. Even kids know that. When I asked our 14-year-old grandson Cameron to finish the sentence, a friend is a person who, cam said, a friend is a person who sticks with you no matter what, when you go through hard times. There you go. One to count on is the doorway to happiness. Let's hear it one more time in the researcher's words. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier, period. I love it when the creator of the universe and a Harvard medical team are in sync. Seriously, this is not guesswork. This is not pie in the sky, by and by. This is God-spoken, research-proven truth about how people find meaning in their lives. When Jesus said in John 10, the thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. He really met it. Part of his plan to give us life to the full is made clear a few chapters later when he tells us what quality friendship is about and what a real friend looks like. A friend is someone you let in. A friend is someone in the know. Friends may serve you, but they are much more than servants. They lay down their lives for each other, which Jesus literally did with an hours of his conversation about friendship. But he had been laying down friendship tracks for the previous three years. Friendships matter. The light of the grand design chases away the darkness of the great alone. But how do we like that candle? How do we start the conversation? How do we lay down those tracks for friendship to run on? It takes real honest to goodness conversations. And these days, conversations don't seem to come easily. So let me say those words again. How do we lay down those tracks for friendship to run on? Takes real honest to goodness conversations. And these days, conversations don't seem to come easily. So next time we're together, I want to talk about how to do the conversation piece. How do we get there, especially in a day when we have to be so intentional about it all the time? But we'll look forward to seeing you then. And in between times, you may want to slide over to known.fm, our website, or just do dickfoath.com. It'll take you there. And if you have a thought or a comment or a question, just reach out and connect with us on social media. Until that time, we say goodbye to you for now, and thanks for listening.