Messy Beautiful Friendship By Christine HooverSample

[Illustrations included in this devotional are not visible in this view. Illustrations are only supported in the Bible App for iOS, Android, and at Bible.com] Day Five Biblical Friendship Scripture: Colossians 3:12–15 Sometimes, when the wound of a friend is especially deep, our tendency is not just to write the friend off but also to write friendship off. We’re hurt so badly that we give ourselves over to cynicism, bitterness, and resentment and we wonder if friendship is worth the risk of wading through the emotions and hurts, attempting reconciliation, and making ourselves vulnerable again. We are friendly and sociable at a safe distance, but heart-level friendship? It’s too risky. Doesn’t true friendship mean dealing biblically with our inevitable hurts, being quick to forgive, crossing life-stage boundaries, and refusing to put other women in categories? Doesn’t it mean pushing through discomfort and refusing to give up on people even when they disappoint us? And perhaps the most important question: Isn’t it the greater blessing to be a person who seeks this type of community rather than clinging to false ideals and waiting for it to just “happen” to us? We must look to serve rather than be served, which means it’s possible that we might not be served in the ways we hope. We must be ever willing to broaden the circle, which means we must have an eye for the outsider rather than an eye for how we can be insiders, and it’s possible we might be forgotten in the process. We must be willing to address sin and conflict in an appropriate way, which means it’s possible we might be rejected. We must be willing to be vulnerable, which means we might be misunderstood and grace might not be extended to us. Paul offers us a definition for friendship in Colossians 3. He exhorts us to actively pursue being a godly friend to others—to actively pursue being patient, forgiving, loving, and thankful. The focus is on what we give to others, not what they give to us. We don’t do these things because we hope to get something in return. We do these things because that is how Christ showed his love toward us and because biblical friendship will always model itself after him. By actively pursuing others the way Christ pursues us, we extend an invitation for the friendship we desire but we also discover the beautiful and always-faithful way in which Christ relates to us. How is biblical friendship different than the type of friendship we learn from the world?