Friendship Breakups and Breakthroughs

A Biblical Perspective on Choosing the Right Friends

One of my most popular blog posts *ever* was about biblical friendships. There’s some common writing advice that you should write about what you find most difficult or most painful. That’s often the writing people connect with most. Today I come to you with a confession—friendship has been one of the most painful areas of my life.

I have gone through countless friendship break ups. I’ve had shifting friend groups throughout my life. I’ve had incredible deep friendships with best friends and I’ve also watched them completely fall apart—sometimes my fault, sometimes my friend’s fault, usually a mix of both. I’ve experienced incredible shame around friendship and I’ve also finally found freedom from it.

Here is a bit of what I’ve learned about making and keeping friends from a biblical perspective in a world where friendships often look far from how God designed them.

One piece of advice I wish I could go back and tell my early twenty something self is that friendships shouldn’t feel like burdens.

If you’re anything like my early twenty something self, you might immediately object, “but aren’t we meant to share in one another’s burdens?”

Galatians 6:2-5 says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.”

The enduring word commentary shares this passage isn’t about expecting others to bear our burdens. Instead, this passage is encouraging us to be “others-focused” instead of “self-focused.”

There are often friendships that feel off balance. One of the main reasons this happens is because one person is going to a friend in hopes of having their burdens carried and needs met, without taking an “others-focused” approach to the friendship.

This passage shows us that ultimately we are all responsible and will be accountable for our own actions before God. But in this life, God has gifted us with community to help us carry the things we truly cannot carry on our own.

We all walk through seasons of life where we will feel like we are carrying a heavy burden. There are times in friendships where one person is doing the heavy lifting for a season. But this shouldn’t last forever and it shouldn’t become a pattern where one person’s burdens are continually unloaded on another’s without any mutual exchange happening.

When someone is walking through a really challenging season having a really great friend can help but it will not solve their problem. What they are truly in need of is friendship with Jesus.

Jesus invites us into rest in exchange for our heavy burdens (Matthew 11:28). It is true that we weren’t meant to carry our burdens ourselves but it’s also true that the only person who can is Jesus.

If you’re noticing that a friendship leaves you feeling heavily burdened without relieving any of your own burden, pay attention to that. It takes humility to admit we cannot heal our friends and we cannot carry them.

There may be friendships where we are called to walk alongside someone for a season to share that burden with them. But if you notice it’s always a “self-focused” friendship know this isn’t the kind of sharing of burdens we are designed for. That is someone attempting to rely on you like they should be relying on God Himself.

Stepping away from that friendship might actually give them the opportunity to look for an appropriate place to put those heavy burdens.

If you’re loving Threshold, share it with a friend! We will be in a friendship series for the next few weeks. (: