Redeemer member Lindsey Smith speaks on the spiritual discipline of Cultivating Christian Community and Friendship
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good evening, everybody. Good evening. It's lovely to see you all. My name is Jeff. I'm one of the pastors at Redeemer and welcome to our second theological talk back of the summer.
Jeffrey Heine:Our our theme kind of for the summer is we're talking about spiritual disciplines. Last time, we gathered with Joel Busby, one of the pastors, at Grace Fellowship, church plant, that came out of Redeemer Community Church a couple of years ago. And we we talked about reading the bible and being in God's word. And tonight, we're gonna be exploring the topic of friendship and Christian community, cultivating a Christian community, and and what that means. The the challenges for community, the challenges for friendship, but also the fruit and and the purpose, the goals that the lord has for us in these relationships.
Jeffrey Heine:And, and so to to lead us in that discussion tonight and to, kinda give a quick breakdown of what a theological, talk back is. We we have 45 minutes of a talk. We take a little break. We get some more cookies, some some more drink. We sit back down, all hopped up on sugar with lots of questions and we start asking questions, Questions based on the things that we've heard, questions that kinda came up, and I would encourage you if you've got a pen and paper, if you got a little, notepad on your your phone to jot down any questions, because we'll come back together, for 45 minutes of q and a together, and then we'll wrap up the evening.
Jeffrey Heine:And, leading us in this conversation tonight is Lindsay Smith, one of our church members. She joined Redeemer, first in 2014, and, and she is a graduate from Beeson Divinity School, with a master's in divinity from from Beeson and also graduate from the university, the University of Alabama. So, I'm very excited about this topic. I'm excited about, kinda diving into some of the questions that that we have. I always love the q and a time.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a it's a it's a rich time, a kind of back and forth, and and that time will be as, as deep and rich as you're willing to engage. So make sure that you, you write those questions down and be ready to go with that. But if you would join with me in welcoming Lindsay Smith.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Alright. Thank you so much. I actually think I'm gonna sit, if that's okay, mainly because I'm not used to speaking in front of a larger group of people, and I am pretty used to sitting across the table from somebody. So this will make me feel a little bit more comfortable.
Speaker 2:But as Jeff said, my name is Lindsay Smith, and I'm super excited about just the opportunity to get to chat, with some of you tonight. Many of you, members of my church honor just for the opportunity, But before we get too far into this, I want to just clear the air and make sure that everyone knows that I am by no means an expert in this topic. Certainly not an expert by the way that many of you would think of experts. I've never written a book on friendship. I've talked to lots of people about friendship, but this is the most people I've ever talked to at once.
Speaker 2:So I don't I'm not on a speaking circuit and don't travel around and talk to people about friendship and community. And there also aren't any special fancy letters after my name that say that I would be, really good at relationships. I'm just Lindsay Smith. But, a 34 year old girl, and I have been dramatically, dramatically changed by friendship, spiritual friendship specifically, and community. So tonight instead of you sitting at the front of your seat with, you know, all these notebooks that Jeff told everybody to get out, there's really no need for that.
Speaker 2:You can just lean in if you want to, you can sit back if you want to, but I just kinda wanna just invite you just to kind of listen in maybe a little bit as I don't share expertise, but I hope what you'll get is just some encouragement, of what it can look like to walk a road of friendship that while often can be very difficult, hard, it's also for the most part not all that complicated. We make it out to be that, but it's really not that. So I hope that when we leave today, you'll feel a little more like it's not quite so complicated. Okay. So friendship and community, they're 2 words that I imagine everybody has heard at some point in time.
Speaker 2:If you haven't, then I might be in trouble because I'm expecting that you've heard those two words before. But they probably have some different meanings for different people. Some may hear those words and just get really, really nervous. And some may hear those words like myself and kinda smile. But what I do think is that the two words, both by themselves and together, have taken on a lot of different meanings.
Speaker 2:Some some for the good and maybe some not for the good. You know, oftentimes when we expand the definition of the word, it can kinda muddy that true definition of the word, and so my hope tonight is to kinda get back to what those words really do mean in their truest form. So, I'm certainly a threat to say call just about anybody my friend, and, you know, when more than a couple people are gathered together, we call that community. But in what we're gonna speak about tonight, those really aren't examples of true spiritual friendship, gospel friendship, and community. So that's really why I was excited when, or I would say, yeah, for the most part pretty excited when, Jeff came and asked me if I would speak on the spiritual discipline of friendship and community, because that really is what it is.
Speaker 2:And it makes it helps me a little bit to be able to kind of separate what is this kind of culture idea of friendship and what is, what does the Bible really have to say about friendship? As a caveat, I don't want anybody to think that I'm up here saying that we shouldn't be friends with folks who are not believers, or we shouldn't run and be in community with those either. That's certainly not the case. But they only gave me 45 minutes, and so we're gonna kind of narrow it in a little bit, and so tonight we'll just talk about, under that umbrella of spiritual friendship and community. Even within that kind of umbrella, there are a lot of different kind of relationships that we can have.
Speaker 2:You know, we can have, folks maybe that are in our specific local church, members of our local church that we're either individually friends with, or maybe as a collective group, maybe in your home group that you're friends with. And then you may also have some folks, I see some people tonight that don't attend Redeemer with me, but because we are brothers or sisters in Christ, we share that spiritual friendship as well and that is also a gift. So I won't do a lot of specific speaking to each of, the general areas, but I do think, the different topics will kind of apply, hopefully, to kind of across the board all of them. In a culture where independence is really really praised, the result is that all too often we kind of live going about our lives really just kind of focused on ourselves. And that idea of spiritual friendship and community really kind of has gotten pushed to the side.
Speaker 2:And instead, things like pride and self centeredness, loneliness, depression, comparison, insecurity, all those things have really just blossomed. Because we're not thinking about everybody else around us, we're thinking about ourselves. And that's not just, an outside of the church kind of thing, that's certainly an inside of the church thing too. I know I certainly struggle with it myself, and I attend redeemer just about every time the doors are open, and I love the Lord and love His word. But because of the way our culture has, looked at individualism, we often just go about our days as just shells of people that really long for community, but we don't know what to do with all those longings and desires that we have.
Speaker 2:Not only is this not healthy, it's certainly not biblical. The Lord didn't intend for us to go about this life on our own and I for 1 am very very grateful that He's given us His Word as a sweet reminder of, some of the ways that He's been encouraging people not to go it alone for years. You know, we've got lots of examples in scripture, whether that's in people and narrative, you know, we've got the stories of David and Jonathan and certainly, they had a lot of differences, but the way that the Lord just really did knit them together, the story of Ruth and Naomi, one of my all time favorites of daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law and how Ruth really did come to know the Lord through, Naomi. And then of course we have Jesus and His disciples and His His 12 people that He was really close to and then even the more that inner circle as well. So lots of friendships, relationships, and a lot of importance on all of those.
Speaker 2:We continue reading through scripture and there's also a book of Proverbs that is almost packed to the brim with things that are specifically kinda driven at, you know, at our relationships, at our friendships, wisdom that's found there. And then in Acts and Ephesians and many of Paul's letters, we have even more encouragement of not only what it would look like, but encouragement for us to live out and walk in community. Some of my favorite passages, 1, you know, we've as we've been just finishing up in acts, one of my favorite passages is in acts 2 towards the end of the chapter, skipping around a little bit, but it says, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and their belongings and distributing the proceeds to all they had in need.
Speaker 2:And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food and with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. I think it's pretty clear, one of the I was talking, with a friend as I was kinda preparing, and I said, you know, it's a little bit different. I've I've talked about some other topics before, and I feel like it's very important to go through and lay a strong biblical ground for the topic, because people can be really confused and really think that it's not that biblical. But as I've even talked to people, maybe even folks that I didn't necessarily know if they were a believer or not, what their thoughts were on friendship, Everyone pretty much said and felt and thought that, friendship was something that was God given and God ordained.
Speaker 2:And so I thought that was pretty interesting, because it's not really something that is thought about or debated about that we should do it, yet it is still something that we struggle to do. Over the years I've read lots of books that talk about community, spiritual community, spiritual friendship, but none have really shaped my life more than the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his pretty short book. If you haven't read it, I would encourage you to get it. It's called Life Together. And at the very, very beginning, he says a couple things.
Speaker 2:He says, It's not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. He goes on to say that the physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. So if those things are true, and I fully believe that they are, why are we so hesitant as believers to step into this friendship, spiritual friendship and community? Or maybe you might be, like me and like I've been at times of 4 where you've kinda you've stepped a little bit in there, you know, you're kind of in the shallow end, but you're just just too scared to take that next step. And in a room this size, with the amount of people that are here, because I know even in a room the size of about 5 people, there are probably a lot of people here that have been hurt by friendship, and you wonder if it's even really worth it.
Speaker 2:So for the remainder of our time, I'd like to propose why I think we, as believers are hesitant, some practical ways to maybe grow a friendship, and then tell you why I know, with I think we could go around the room, starting over here and people could go around and say why they're hesitant, and we would have a whole lot of different answers. We're not gonna go around and do that one, because you're already gonna put me on the spot with the question and answer, so I can only handle I like to be able to control this part. So I'll just say, both for my own personal, kind of experience as well as from walking alongside others, I think we can maybe divide those up into 2 kind of categories of hesitancy. 1, sacrifice and 2, being suffering. I'd venture to say, for most of us, the reason that we are where we are with our friends is because one or both of the parties isn't willing to sacrifice, or we just don't want to walk through a hard season of suffering.
Speaker 2:I'm not a mother, but at every baby shower that I've been to, pretty much a standard kind of thing for you guys that have not been to baby showers. I would say for the most part, you're not missing out too much. They can sometimes be kinda lame. But it is really great that your friend is having a baby, so I love that part, so I continue to go. But the games and all that stuff, I could do without.
Speaker 2:But, one of the things that's pretty common is everybody goes around and they say, Okay, for all the moms, let's go around and someone raises their hand and says, oh well, you know, you gotta get all the sleep you can, because when the baby comes, no more. It's just life is over. You know, and I don't know, I don't have children, so I don't know, I can kind of ascertain from those of my friends that have. But what's interesting to me is that never at any point, at any of those showers has the expectant mother said, well, forget it. I mean, if I'm gonna have to lose sleep, if I'm gonna have to sacrifice, if I might have to suffer, then then I'm out.
Speaker 2:Don't sign me up for that. Instead, she welcomes that. She welcomes being a mom and welcomes that sacrifice and welcomes the suffering that may come with that relationship. We all make sacrifices every single day. You probably make them so much that you don't even notice that you're making them.
Speaker 2:You make sacrifices of your time, of your sleep, of your way. And one sign of growing and maturing in our spiritual friendships is when we can look and see those sacrifices that are being made. Certainly at times, there will be people in our lives that, we feel like we're making more sacrifices than they are, but let me just tell you, it is not about keeping score. Friendships don't keep score. Instead, we as friends and we as believers see sacrifice as the way Christ sees sacrifice.
Speaker 2:And He sees it as a sign of love. One of my favorite passages in scripture is found in John 15, the beginning of the of the chapter, is probably one that most of you remember. It's one that talks about, the vine and abiding in Christ and what that looks like. But a little bit further down, right after that, there's 2 verses that also I imagine are pretty common that you've heard before. It says, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Speaker 2:Greater has no one than this greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Now that's sacrifice right there. But the interesting thing about sacrifice is that there's kind of an order to it, and there's a proper order. And a lot of times, especially if we're looking at a friend and thinking, they're sacrificing not as much as I am, we've gotten that order out of out of line. We are in in that kind of case, we're sacrificing in order to get a blessing.
Speaker 2:And in fact, that's not a sacrifice at all. That's called a self serving sacrifice, and that defeats the purpose of a sacrifice. So it's kind of like an oxymoron, it doesn't make sense. But what I will tell you is that we can be assured that if our motives are pure, and only you can know that, and you'll know that when you're looking at a friend and thinking, man, I sure am doing all the work and they're doing nothing. But if our motives are pure and they're in the right place when we sacrifice, blessings will come.
Speaker 2:Now, they may not be heaps of blessing this side of heaven, and they may not come the way that we want or intend or hope that they will come, but they will come. And I'm not usually one to guarantee things, you know, shy away from that as a pretty standard thing, but I can say with a 100% confidence that I can guarantee you for the amount that you paid to come and hear me speak, which I think is all of 0, but when we recognize the sacrifices that others are making, and when we offer genuine sacrifice to them as well, without expecting anything in return, that is true sacrifice, and that is fertile fertile ground for friendships to grow. Now, before you get really scared and think that I'm gonna ask you to lay down your life for all of your friends and die for them, I'm not. But there are countless ways that we can lay down our lives for our friends. Things that may not seem like a big deal at the time, they may not even seem like a big deal to you even looking back, but they are and they can be a big deal to the person on the other side.
Speaker 2:I for 1 have been on the receiving end of a whole lot of sacrifices that people have made on my behalf. A couple of examples. So I'm 34 years old, I am incredibly single, never been married, never don't have any children, no one calls me mom, and if you had told me that 15 years ago, I would have absolutely laughed. And if you would have told me that 5 years ago, I would have probably given you a pensive look and been thinking, please no, there's no way that could be the truth, because that's not how it's supposed to be. I've always been told I would be a great mom and a great wife, and so that could certainly not be the case.
Speaker 2:So I would have just kind of blown you off. But, my friends and those people in my community have time and time again pointed me to the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living as I've walked through this season of synchronous. And the times they have done that with sacrifices that have been kind of tied to that, especially to those unmet desires and longings that I have, have been so memorable for me. They've made lasting impressions. Not long after I moved to Birmingham, my path crossed with a family that at the time I was going to church with.
Speaker 2:They were a sweet, sweet family. Mom and dad were a little bit older than me. They had 4 children, from elementary age down to 1. So to say that their quiver was full and they were very busy was quite the understatement. At the time, I was getting my master's at Beeson.
Speaker 2:So I had a different kind of schedule, you know, studying and I was in school, but I did have a lot of a lot of time after school and also just was missing and longing for family. And whether Well that was real good. Good. We're still on a thing. Whether they knew it, whether it was the Holy Spirit's nudging or not, what they began doing was they just began inviting me in to sometimes little things, you know, I mentioned the fact that I really really like to help with homework, and so the next thing I knew, I had a standing appointment to help all their children with all their homework.
Speaker 2:I mentioned that, you know, I love to watch T ball and, you know, tumbling, and I'd be happy to take her children to tumbling and the next thing you know, I was, you know, the new, Uber driver and I was taking them all over the place. But I loved those things, and to me, they weren't sacrifices at really at all because I felt like I was gaining the best thing in the world. I had the opportunity to interact with these precious children and this precious family, All the while, I was gaining great conversations with the mom who was pointing me to Jesus and she was reminding me of things. The dad was super super kind and encouraging in a whole lot of different ways. Over the years, they welcomed me to family celebrations.
Speaker 2:I've gone to their lake house, to family reunions, lots of concerts, and they have provided me dinner more times than I can count. They have sacrificed their time and resources, a whole lot of them, but I would say for me, that gal who's single that longs for family, the thing I am most most grateful for is that that sweet family of 6 has welcomed me into their home and treated me like family. They've reminded me that just because I'm single doesn't make me any less of a person, and they've welcomed that extra love that I felt that I had to share and have looked for ways to include me. I've been celebrated, I've been challenged, I've been comforted, but mostly, I've gotten to see firsthand what it looks to put someone else's needs, wants, and desires before maybe the way that you kinda thought things would be. Because of them, because of this sweet, sweet family, I feel like I know Jesus a little bit more and I hope that I act a little bit more like Jesus as well too.
Speaker 2:We often hear that word sacrifice and think that it has to be something really really grand and big, and it certainly can at times, you know. But it doesn't have to be the case. So for those of you that are sitting there thinking, there's no way that I could do all those things. You know, that's that's simply okay. That's not a problem.
Speaker 2:One of the sweetest gifts that the Lord gave me this past year was when a girl that I'd mentored moved right next door to me with her husband. I was super pumped. Maybe I'd kind of tried to encourage them to move next door to me, but and I was excited about that for all the worldly reasons mainly. You know, I'd grown up watching all these fun shows and it was just so fun when, you know, you're you're friends with your next door neighbors, and I'd never had that. I'd always wanted it.
Speaker 2:We were so close to having that when I was a kid, and then my parents peaced out and moved out of that neighborhood, and so I didn't even get to enjoy it, you know, the first two years of my life. So, they moved in and what the I didn't even kind of realize, I thought it would be kind of fun, you know, but it's been so much better. It's been so much sweeter than fun, because they do little things that are really, really big. So I'm going to give you some hints for those of you who are looking for the little things. They also invite me over for dinner.
Speaker 2:Clearly, I mean I really like to be invited over for dinner. So, I don't like to cook for 1. Cooking for 1 is hard and it's really really lonely. So, they invite me over for dinner, and they only occasionally kind of encourage not required. And the interesting thing for that is, you know, I think we can all say, well, it's just one more person to feed and that's difficult.
Speaker 2:This sweet couple that lives next door to me has been living on a one person income as her husband finished up grad school. So, and they cooked me some pretty phenomenal dinners. So, but that involves sacrifice, and it's a sacrifice that they make really willingly, and not begrudgingly, because I've yet to offer the favor to bring them and buy them over to my house, so I just kind of take the pie. They've also given a lot of their time to linger longer. You know, sometimes it can be really lonely to go back into my home by myself, and so I feel like sometimes they just kinda can sense that and we can have conversations outside or, you know, when there's a sporting event going on, because what, person doesn't love a good sporting event instead of me watching and cheering for the Crimson Tide for my house and then watching and cheering for the tide next door.
Speaker 2:We just do that together, and that's super sweet, and I'm grateful for that. So again, that doesn't cost a dime, you know. But it's things that show that they're sacrificing their time, that they could be just together. They're, you know, still somewhat newly married and I know a lot of people that would say, well, this is our time. But I'm grateful that they've seen beyond, what they maybe thought those 1st years of marriage were gonna look like, and they've extended that out, to me.
Speaker 2:In both of the examples, the people, would probably laugh. Actually my neighbors are here and they did laugh when I said that they made sacrifices. But I would say a 100% because they did laugh, that that means that they really are sacrifices. Because they don't really think it's that big of a deal. They're not trying to do it to better themselves.
Speaker 2:They had no idea that I was gonna come up here and say how grateful I am that they make me dinner and, you know, I'll be back next week, and if you all wanna invite me next week, that'd be great. But those sacrifices that they have made, that my other friends have made, and I've got lots more that I could share that I'm hoping that you're thinking of some as well, What those do is those have paved the way for other conversations to have, for us to have other conversations. So, we've been able to ask some deep questions dinner table just seems to kind of open those up, you know? And I just am grateful for those friendships. Those friendships that involve sacrifice, because without that sacrifice, they're just really kind of this fake kind of version of a friendship, I think.
Speaker 2:And those are the ones, oftentimes, that we're clinging to, those fake ones, and, we're wondering why this isn't working out, and it's probably because it's missing some of those building blocks of what true friendship is, and I would say that that first one is, sacrifice. Okay. So second reason, so we've got sacrifice and we've got suffering, and just to help y'all out, I don't know, I wrote this talk in a lot of different kind of times, there are a lot of s's. So I was raised Southern Baptist, so I don't know. I mean, I'm kinda there are a lot of s's.
Speaker 2:It wasn't on purpose, and then I asked a friend if I should change it, and she was like, Linh, whatever, just go with it. So lots of s's, so sorry. But there's a book that Drew Hunter wrote, it's called Made for Friendship. I highly encourage it, encourage you to read it. But what's kind of funny is while I wholeheartedly endorse the book, I think it's it's really great, there's a tagline or kind of a subtitle that's right under it that says, made for friendship, the relationship that halves our sorrows and doubles our joy.
Speaker 2:So that seems to kind of fly in the face of what I've just said, that friendships involve suffering, yet I still highly endorse the book. And I do, because I believe that it's possible to have suffering in our friendships and for friendships to also have our sorrow. It's similar to why we're able on this side of the resurrection, look at Good Friday, the most horrendous day ever when Jesus died on the cross and call it good. Because we're able to see beyond it, and see beyond that sorrow and that suffering, to the gospel. When I was thinking about an example that I could use to depict walking through suffering with a friend, it was just hard, and not because I didn't have one, sadly because I have way too many.
Speaker 2:I have friends who have lost their children, friends who have lost parents far far too young. I mean, because I'm 34, but that's still pretty young, I think. Right? So my friends who've lost their parents are just hard. Unwanted separation and divorce, job loss, constant struggles with sin, cancer diagnoses, it's never easy to watch a friend suffer.
Speaker 2:And that's why I think we often see people kind of leave when the hard times come. You know, they just kinda check out. But for me, the hardest, hardest sufferings to walk alongside a friend in are those that are those private kind of sufferings. You know, they're the kinds where nobody really sees them from the outside. You're looking at them, and they are all smiles and happy, and everything's great, and you get together and you say, hey, a question that one of my friends and I like to ask a lot.
Speaker 2:How's your heart before the Lord? You know, it's a kind of a loaded question. It's tough. And you ask that question and her response, it's it's not, oh, things are great. Instead, they share something with you in confidence that knocks the wind out of you.
Speaker 2:And maybe at first, because, you know, I don't know. I mean, I love being a friend. I just love the opportunity that it that we're given to be able to walk alongside people. So maybe at first, I'm kind of a little bit kinda glad that they were willing to share, but then the more I think about it, the more I'm just overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with sadness, overwhelmed by the weight of what they've just told me.
Speaker 2:And really, maybe all you want to do is the same thing that sometimes all I wanna do, and that's run. A few years ago, one of my dearest dearest friends was engaged to be married. Her fiance loved the Lord and he loved her, and I really loved him too. I was just so excited for both of them. His family was great and everybody loved his And then she was confronted with the knowledge, And then she was confronted with the knowledge from her fiance himself, the man she thought she knew so well was inwardly, very strongly struggling with pornography.
Speaker 2:He was repentant and he was seeking help, but he was still very very much struggling. And I'll never forget where I was where she where I was when she told me that. Or the way that we sat in that same little spot and just cried for I don't know how long. There was a lot of hurt, there was a lot of confusion, frustration, and anger. It was like this tilt a whirl of emotions.
Speaker 2:I just it was something that I never experienced. Normally, I'm one with all of the words. You know, I'm the friend that people come to for for advice and for wisdom and, you know, I usually think that I can have it, but I sat there in complete and utter silence. I didn't know what the Lord wanted me to say or do. And as I was kind of going through the things that in my mind that I wanted to say or do, I knew that those were 100% my flesh, and I just needed to keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 2:To watch a dear friend walk through suffering is one of the hardest things that we will do in this life. And for me in that particular instance, the hurt was only multiplied because it wasn't something that she brought upon herself, it was something that was delivered to her, by someone who she loved and who also loved her. The days, weeks, and months that followed continued to just be a bevy of emotional kind of turmoil. We suffered through the ramifications of his sinful actions and what that looked like, should they get married, what did what did the gospel what did the gospel look like in something like this? When we were together, I did my very best to offer support and truth and wisdom and just for pointer to Jesus.
Speaker 2:I tried so hard, but when we were when I was by myself, it was just a whole other story. I was reeling from the pain of watching not just my sister in Christ, but also this brother in Christ who I cared for deeply as well, and I was grateful for and loved the way that he loved my friend. So it was just this mixture, like who am I supposed to pray for the most? Do I pray for her?
Jeffrey Heine:Do I
Speaker 2:pray for him? I mean I mean it was just very very hard. These two friends of mine are now, married, counseling and prayer and work on his part to truly partner with the Holy Spirit to fight the sin, and on Her part, to forgive Him and walk in what does it look like to believe the gospel in the face of our sin, has really helped to establish a joyful, joyful marriage for them. But I'll say as a friend that walked that suffering road filled or suffering filled road with her, I found myself having to also sit before the Lord and just ask for forgiveness and ask for the ability and the willingness to forgive someone who had hurt my friend so deeply. Walking alongside a friend going through any kind of suffering is not something that I, you know, sign up for, you know, I don't not real eager to do it, but it's something that we're all going to do, I believe, certainly if we're friends.
Speaker 2:I would I would maybe even venture so far to say, if you haven't walked alongside suffering with a friend, you may not have a friend. That's pretty harsh, but I think it's pretty true. But you see, each time, that we do that, it gives us an opportunity, you know, even now, when they're happily, I said they're joyfully married, and they are, but our struggles don't go away, our sufferings don't go away, it's not like this, there's a bow, I guess, to some extent, but it's not like this big bow that never gets undone. You know? I still have to ask her, how are you and your husband doing in that fight against pornography?
Speaker 2:And that's not a question that I wanna ask. I don't like to do that, because I know that the answer could be not great right now. And then there's more suffering, so it's just kinda part of it. But when we go through suffering, we also have the opportunity to bear one another's burdens. You know, there's lots of one another's in Scripture, like a 100 of them, I think.
Speaker 2:I was at one point in time, I was counting, and then I realized I could probably do a little Google search and it would maybe tell me. So I was counting, and then I did a Google search, and someone that looked to be smarter than me said there were a 100, so I'm gonna kinda go with that. It was definitely over 72, when I was counting. So, but bearing with one another, I get a chance to do that every time, and that's something that we're commanded to do, so the Lord allows me to do that. And I can certainly say, you know, kind of getting back to, that tagline at the beginning about suffering that while my sufferings have increased because of my friends, you know, because I'm not they're just not just my sufferings, I'm sharing in theirs as well.
Speaker 2:Because I have friends who have walked alongside me in my sufferings, mine have been been halved as well. So they've been doubled, or they've been increased, but they've been halved, and I'll take that. I'll take that every day. I'm grateful for it. Okay.
Speaker 2:Enough about suffering. We've talked about the things that make us hesitant. Now let's talk a little bit about the friendships that aren't really kinda moving. Maybe they're in the shallow end or they're kind of in the stagnant kind of part of friendship. For those of you who look around your circle of friends or your community and you feel like you're kinda wading in those shallow waters, and you want some practical steps, I don't know, I'm kind of a practical step kinda gal myself, I'll just kind of invite you to first hear this.
Speaker 2:The number one practical step is to pray. A 100%. It's not a caveat. It's not the Sunday school answer. It's a 100% the first the first step, and I would venture to say it's the most important step.
Speaker 2:It's not No friendship is exactly alike. There's not this 12 step process that I can take to find a friend. I remember when I was in elementary school, we had this little unit where we learned how to find a friend, and I kinda was laughing even thinking about it, like, what is that? Like, I mean, how to find a friend in 12 easy steps. That's not how friendship works.
Speaker 2:But friendship, especially in this stage in the game, when you're longing for friendships, or when you're kind of there and you think maybe, I don't know, the best way to find out is to discern those things through prayer. Prayer and wisdom, the holy spirit, the Lord, He created us to be in relationship with people, so He's not withholding things from you. I know sometimes it might seem like that, there were seasons where I was on my knees begging the Lord for a friend, and, felt like I was, you know, hitting the ceiling, like not with those super tall ceilings either, like the 6 foot kind. You know, but he did hear, you know, and he used those seasons to strengthen me and bring me closer to him, and he also used those seasons to make me more and more grateful for the friends that I have now. So I'm about there are a lot of these things that I could maybe say I could go back and forth on, but there I'm not getting away from being a firm believer in the power of prayer.
Speaker 2:I've seen it all too often, the way that the Holy Spirit has worked in relationships both with me and my friends and and those that I'm kind of acquainted with as well. And what happens oftentimes, you know, you're saying, well what happens? Like what do you pray for? Well, I mean, I do. I pray for the Holy Spirit to give me discernment and wisdom to to for me to be a friend and for me to, receive a friend, to bring a friend, and then I listen and I wait for Him to convict me.
Speaker 2:And conviction's not fun. I don't know. I mean usually I don't the prayer that I like to pray the least is, Lord, show me the sin that I don't see. That's not fun. He usually answers that one too pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:But conviction is that feeling that you get that you're just all you know, it's all you can think about. Every time you try to change the subject a little bit, you know, maybe that's just me with the Holy Spirit, but it's this conviction that he will tell you, he'll lead you where to go. Sometimes it might mean to ask a question of someone, that'll kind of take you into deeper waters Or sometimes, even more recently, there was a friend I could sense was kind of inviting me into this friendship that I hadn't necessarily been praying about, but the way that the Holy Spirit kind of worked in that, helped to be able to kind of know how I was to respond. So sometimes we'll be that first step, sometimes we'll be that second step. But no matter what when we're praying, we can trust that that Holy Spirit is gonna be guiding us along the way.
Speaker 2:A little over 3 years ago, I too found myself in kind of those shallow friendship waters with someone. It was a gal that I'd worked together with for a long time and she was super kind and fun, and I loved hanging out with her, really cute, she was a believer, so she said nice things. She was a friend and she was a really good friend. I loved, we'd grab lunch and she would reach out to me, I didn't feel like I was having to hold all the weight. She reached out to me, I would reach out to her, it was just it worked really well.
Speaker 2:But I would say our conversations for the most part were pretty surface level. You know, we would talk about work or, oh, what are you doing this weekend? Oh, how so and so? How's that? But nothing really deep.
Speaker 2:And in all honesty, I was pretty okay with that. I had other friends that I was really close to and I knew that she did as well. So there was really no need for us to have anything deeper, I didn't think, than what we currently had. But all of that changed 3 years ago. I'd been praying for this friend, because she was like I said, she was a friend, so I was praying for her, and I began to get this overwhelming sense of conviction that I needed to ask her, a question.
Speaker 2:Well this question was extremely personal in nature, and so instead, I began to kinda have this bargaining game with the Holy Spirit that was convicting me to kinda say, well, I would not ask that of a close friend, and I've already told you that I like this girl, we're not like friends like that, so I'm not asking this question. But as I continued to pray, that first step, the Holy Spirit just the conviction was just overwhelming, and I knew that I was gonna have to ask her this really really tough question. And so the next time we got together for lunch, I'm sitting there, you know, we're eating pizza, and I'm barely eating, which, you know, revert to the beginning, I love to eat. So I'm barely eating, you know, my stomach's in knots. I'm thinking, I've got to ask her this question, and I do not wanna do it.
Speaker 2:Something's gonna have to happen, like maybe I'll pass out or something. But we're done. You know, the checks have come and, I've got my keys and it's time to grab our keys and us to say, alright, see you next month for our next, you know, just kinda fun, you know, glad to see you chat. And before I even kind of had the chance, these words stumbled out of my mouth that I have to ask you a question. And then she just kinda like looked, like, okay, you know, and then I was thinking, oh, crud, like now I've gotta ask her question, you know, maybe I can think of another question really quick, you know.
Speaker 2:But instead, what began to kind of tumble out was, all these caveats, you know. Well, you know, this question is pretty personal. I normally wouldn't ask anybody and, you know, you certainly don't have to answer this question if you don't want to and it's really none of my business. And I don't wanna even ask you this, but the Holy Spirit, every time I pray, the Holy Spirit keeps on just kinda telling me that I have to, you know. So basically I thought, maybe if she, you know, doesn't want to be my friend anymore, she won't blame me, she'll blame Him, you know?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I sometimes like to pass the blame. So, so she was probably sitting there a little bit, maybe confused, maybe anxious, but she sat there and the next thing I knew, I told her that, over the past month or so as I've been praying, I've been really convicted to pray for she and her husband to be able to have a child, and I asked her if they were struggling to get pregnant. Yes. I asked my friend if she and her husband were struggling to get pregnant. I would again, I would not ask my dearest friend that.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's like the question no one asks. You never ask someone if they want to get pregnant, you never, even if they're 9 months pregnant, ask them if they are pregnant. You know, I mean these are standard rules of being a female, don't do those things. And that did, I asked and her response was these tear filled eyes and a nod. And then the words just started to come out.
Speaker 2:And I'm sitting there thinking, oh my goodness. I mean, I don't know, I hadn't really thought past the fact that I was gonna have to ask the question. I didn't think that she was gonna actually respond to the question. You know, I really thought that she would just get up and leave. So her response was one that just shook me to the core.
Speaker 2:You know, as she began to tell me that yes, they did want to have a child, and yes, they were struggling, and no, the doctors had no reason why that they couldn't get pregnant, and their family didn't know, and their friends didn't know. And I'm thinking, they don't. Like, I don't even know if we're friends. You know, I thought we were just kinda, you know, the grab lunch friends. And I just sat there, and I cried and she cried and we prayed.
Speaker 2:And that was 3 years ago. And after that, I mean, it was like things were never the same. I mean, we could no longer just get together and have a cup of coffee or have pizza. There was a different kind of bond that the Holy Spirit 100% orchestrated. So there were deep conversations that she offered and invited me to be able to share some struggles that I'd had as well, and she was the kindest one to always let me know that she was thinking about me and praying for me.
Speaker 2:Again, things that I'd, for whatever reason, had not really shared with other folks. And I while I hated being at first the only one that she felt like she could share with, I was honored that she did, And I just took it upon myself to pray, pray, pray for them. And I prayed for them, and I prayed for she, and I prayed for her husband. I prayed for years for them to have a baby. And it was one of the greatest joys in my life, when she called me, a little less than a year ago and told me that they were pregnant.
Speaker 2:And now, she has a little boy, and there is to some extent, you know, a bow on that. But the reason that I love that story so much that I wanna tell you that story, because I've got a lot of stories of me wading into the water, is because that one has such an impact and such an end that I feel like every time I see her, and every time I see her son, I can't help but think that this was a friendship that I was not counting off. I didn't think that she was worth it or worthy of it. I just didn't really think I needed it or she did. And I would have missed out so much had I just, you know, listened to myself and not leaned into the Holy Spirit and asked the tough question.
Speaker 2:And I'm so grateful. And now her sweet son will be a sweet reminder to me, not just of the importance and the power of of prayer, but that friendships are really important and it's worth it to take that next step. So that kinda leads us in, I think, to, why I know that it's worth it. Certainly, I know it's worth it for, the friendships that I've gotten, But, you know, I didn't say that I would do this talk, because I think I'm the best friend there ever was. And actually, I know that there are a lot of people that are out here that I'm hoping when the open mic comes up, they don't instead of asking questions, they just stand up here and say how I've been a bad friend over the years.
Speaker 2:And I'm also not the most perfect and eloquent speaker. Certainly. Y'all can see that, you know, there have been times where my leg's been shaken a 1000000 times, and, my eyes are filled with tears, and it's been hard to just kind of share some of this stuff. There's had to be someone better, at speaking in this congregation than me. But I think one of the reasons that Jeff decided to ask me, of all people, is because I do love to share about, the ways that friendship and community have made me look more like Jesus.
Speaker 2:It's one of my absolute favorite things. As believers, we have a special word for this process of looking more like Jesus. You know, the process, it actually also starts with an s, it's called sanctification. It's that process of looking more like Jesus. It's an ongoing process, doesn't happen overnight, you know, unlike our justification which happens immediately upon us being believers.
Speaker 2:That sanctification process is one that works hand in hand with the Holy Spirit. Jesus certainly has, a role in it, but we have a role to play too. And one of the beautiful parts of it is it's not just up to us. The Holy Spirit allows our friendships to also make us look more like Jesus and help us to look more like Him. I've heard it said a lot of times over the years that your spouse and your children are the most, sanctifying relationships, and that might be the case for a lot of you here, but for those of you who don't share that same sentiment or who don't have those relationships, let me remind you that the most important thing to remember is that God wants us to look more like Jesus.
Speaker 2:And if the only way we do that is to be married and to have children, then we would all be married and we would all have children. So instead of us comparing ways and saying, well these are the ways we're most sanctified and trying to one up someone instead, I would just say that I'm really grateful that the Lord has used friends and used community, many of whom are in this room to, make me look more like Jesus. So many of my friends have helped me to see the Lord's goodness during seasons of my life where I haven't been able to see it for myself. They've prayed for me, they've partnered with me and encouraged me to memorize Scripture, they've corrected lies that I was believing about myself and my circumstances, and they've spoken truth to my doubting heart until I couldn't help but believe it again. One of my dearest friends no longer lives here, but she has profoundly impacted the way that I go about my days.
Speaker 2:Little things used to really rattle me. I love a plan. I like to know what we're doing. I like everything to be just so, but when the plan goes awry, it doesn't usually go well for me. But my friend saw this, and because she's a friend, she kindly and tenderly, pointed out to me that that didn't really look like Jesus.
Speaker 2:And instead what that looked like was me placing all of my hope in my plans. And she taught me instead what it looks like to have an eternal mindset, and to not get all flustered when things don't go my way. Last year, I was walking through a kind of a dark darker season. I'm pretty typically a pretty positive kind of gal, and so at first I was just kinda like, whatever, it's a season, this too shall pass. It's not all that bad.
Speaker 2:I kinda threw myself into helping everybody else out and just kind of ignoring the pain, you know? So it took quite a while, longer than normal, I would say, for me to actually admit that I was kind of struggling. But I finally did and I did for a friend and I quickly realized just how silly I'd been for not sharing that really at the beginning when I was starting to feel that way. Because she didn't respond with this laundry list of things that I needed to do to pull myself together. Instead, she offered a listening ear.
Speaker 2:She met me with an inviting heart. And when she asked me, you know, how I was praying about it and how she could also pray for me, and I had to confess that I actually wasn't praying about it because I really didn't want to know the answer to the prayer maybe. You know, she didn't just say, well, that's alright. Don't worry about that. You know, she said, that's not alright, and you're gonna have to pray about it.
Speaker 2:And I'll sit right here beside you, but you're gonna pray about it before I ever pray about it. And that was kinda harsh, I thought. But she was right, and she knew that I needed to be able to be the one to first voice, voice those hurts and voice those concerns. And, it's helped so much, you know. And again, it's just a way that that sanctification process of me looking more like Jesus has come through friends.
Speaker 2:Another one of my friends has so many traits that look like Jesus that sometimes I just kind of jokingly say that she's Jesus with skin on. She's shown me what it looks like to love her friends really well. Know some of the other people that she's friends with and we kind of all joke that we're her favorite because of the way that she loves us so well. Certainly they are not favorites, but the way that she listens, gently corrects, responds, encourages, all those things, she makes me look more like Jesus. She aids in that process as well.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing, I've got a the Lord over the years has really blessed me with some dear folks that are kind and generous friends, and I will tell you that, it's not all it's not all roses. You know, it's not all beautiful. It's certainly not all easy. There's a lot of hard, but I've come to find out that, even in the times where I feel, like my friends are pointing out to me something to me or saying something that might hurt me, hurt my feelings a little bit, and it might make me kind of cool back a little bit. Because if they are true friends, they're not doing those things to harm me.
Speaker 2:Instead, they're doing those things and saying those things to set me right back there at the foot of the cross and help me to look more like Jesus. So quick recap, so that we can have plenty of time for questions. Friendships and community, they involve us, and we are sinful people. So it's not gonna be perfect, there's gonna be trials for sure. It's gonna require us to sacrifice, and friendships will cause us to enter times of suffering.
Speaker 2:They'll also involve things that are kinda scary. You know, sometimes we'll have to step out somewhere where we didn't wanna go, and maybe sometimes, a question from a friend will cause us to have to kinda step into a place that we didn't wanna go. But in the end, those true spiritual friendships should point us to Christ. And that will make everything else worth it, because that's when we see that process of sanctification start to take place. Alright.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I did pretty good on time. So, we're gonna do I'm looking for Jeff to tell me how long we're taking a break. A 5 minute break, and then we'll circle back and you all can hit me with your best questions. I'll do my best to either answer or deflect to somebody else that I think would know the answer. So
Jeffrey Heine:you're good. We're gonna get started with the q and a. As we kind of get set for that, I do wanna, go ahead and let you know that we have, doctor Doug Webster, who's gonna be leading our next theological talk back. That's gonna be on July 10th, Wednesday, July 10th, continuing the theme with the spiritual disciplines. And we're gonna be, digging into the Psalms as, the Jesus's prayer book is how we're gonna be approaching it.
Jeffrey Heine:Doug Webster is a professor at Peace and Divinity School. He's been a a mentor and teacher of mine for a number of years now, and, it's gonna be a a wonderful time. And so, be sure to tell your friends, make a friend, and bring them. That'd be great.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Jeffrey Heine:So Lindsay said lots of amazing and wonderful things, and, I'm sure that you've taken copious notes. And so you have lots of and lots of different questions. But we're we're gonna take some time, to ask questions. And, and if you could just raise your hand, we'll run a mic over to you. That's so we can have all this, recorded and everything.
Jeffrey Heine:So, make sure that you wait for the mic and then, go for a question. So who wants to be the brave soul who kicks us off with questions?
Speaker 2:If we don't have questions, you know, we just
Jeffrey Heine:Call it.
Speaker 2:Everybody will get home by my bedtime, or there goes the first one.
Speaker 3:Hey, Lindsay. Hey, Liz. I'd like to hear, about differences in friendships between generations and then also what do you think about male female spiritual friendships or is that even a thing?
Speaker 2:Okay. 2 two very different questions, so I'll start with the first one. So, intergenerational friendships, I think they're great. I don't I think Scripture is pretty clear that we should have them. You know, we talk about Titus 2, has often pointed to.
Speaker 2:I've had friendships over the years with people. One of my dearest dearest friends is actually a lady that's in her sixties, and she's so great, you know, I was kind of talking about before of people that are able to kind of help me see above all the things that are going on, you know, because I do think, try as hard as I might. I'm still a 34 year old gal and I have 34 year old girl problems, and she's someone that's been a little bit further along the road, and she's able to kind of remind me that that seems like a really big deal right now, and it's it's not. You know? So I'm super grateful for that.
Speaker 2:I think we I love the way just kinda giddy. I'm I was here at Redeemer, in 2014, like I said, I moved away for a brief time and I came back and one of my favorite things about coming back to Redeemer after leaving was there were people that had gray hair in our church, and I was so excited because they have wisdom that I don't have and that I need. You know? And I'm also really grateful, I'm totally time for it's another topic for another day, but something I'm very passionate about is discipling and mentoring those who, are younger than us. And I think that's also very clear that we should be doing that in scripture as well.
Speaker 2:And so, the fun thing about that is, you do that and you do it for a season of time, and the Lord grows those people and they become some of your dearest and closest friends, and so I've gotten to kind of reap that as well. So I would say, certainly, intergenerational friendships, I think it's We bought into a cultural lie if we think that we can only be friends with people who are just like us. You know, now, a lot of my friends really, we don't share a lot of the same, you know, interests necessarily, but we do share the same god, and that's what has been the thing that that's been the thing that's tied me with the people that I love the most far more so than any love of even something that I love a whole lot like Alabama football. So in our generational friendships, I'm for those. Male and female friendships, I think you asked about that as well.
Speaker 2:I would say kind of a couple things. 1, I think that a lot of times the way that we answer that question, comes out of fear. The idea that, we as brothers and sisters in Christ can't be friends with someone who is maybe not our, maybe as a female I can't be friends with those who are males. I think that flies in the face of what scripture says about us being brothers and sisters in Christ. Certainly, there are, some things that I might need to take note of, and might need to be prayer maybe this is, you know, somebody that I seem to be attracted to and I don't think that I should be, maybe that means that I take a step back, but certainly we can't just say, you know, because I'm 34 and I'm single, I can't be friends with with guys.
Speaker 2:Or Or because I'm 34 and I'm single, I can't be friends with, my friends' husbands. That would, for me, rule out a whole large portion of the body of Christ, and I think that'd be a bit doing a vast disservice. Some of my my especially, I would say, my my dearest friends, their spouses have been sweet, sweet gifts to me during my season of singleness. And so, I can't imagine walking through life without them cheering me on and, encouraging me and praying for me. We wanna be so rigid, that we allow fear to create all these rules, and those rules, what they do is they create this false sense of security, and that false sense of security really is just gonna likely kinda come tumbling down.
Speaker 2:And so I would say instead of creating these rules and having this false sense of security, I would instead just invite us to pray. You know, it's not a caveat kind of joke answer. I mean, I really would say, you know, pray, ask for wisdom in those situations just like I would say that we should be asking for wisdom in any, you know, you know, I should be asking for wisdom with relationships with fellow females as well. So just be asking the Lord for wisdom. And I think, because He doesn't desire to lead us into temptation, you know?
Speaker 2:So if I'm asking the Lord to give me wisdom, around that, I think He will. You know? Now it's certainly up to me to respond to that wisdom and respond to that conviction in a way that's gonna be glorifying to the Lord. But, don't think that we need to just throw the baby out with the bathwater when people get married, or because they're not, our same same sex. So does that answer your question?
Speaker 2:Maybe? Did that answer your question in a way I'm hoping that I didn't and didn't make anybody mad that, you know, really, you know, asked me to be here. So hopefully that was alright. Okay. Any others?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. I am a little nervous.
Speaker 4:Thanks. Okay. This is actually a real question, not from your list. I'm trying to think about how to ask this, but most of my best friends are married and like you, and I think with my personality, I can make friendships really easily. And before I know it, I'm friends with people and then I'm a big evaluator and sometimes things come up and I'm like, oh, you're really draining or just things that I didn't see right away.
Speaker 4:And I've had to, you know, definitely evaluate and handle the different relationships, I guess, differently. But do you have any advice on I don't know, not respectfully bowing out or just kind of that, like making does that even make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that makes sense. You know, kind of a joke, you know, that Michael w Smith song, friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them. You know, I sang that as a little duet when I was in the 10th grade. And I think that's true in some senses, you know, I mean we're if if we share, the father, we are, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we'll always be friends, but our friendships will not always be the same.
Speaker 2:There were, was someone that I when I lived, moved from Birmingham and I lived in Charlotte for a period of time, and there was someone that I was incredibly close with for that period of time. And it was really a wonderful friendship, and then I moved away and then that one kind of fizzled out, you know. So certainly, sometimes just your location and the way things kind of work, sometimes that happens. And then sometimes it happens, which I think is kinda what you're getting at, that maybe they're still there, but you just don't know if if, you know, it sounds like you've been kind of praying about it and if it's not necessarily the best use of your time, energy, effort, resources, sacrifices, all those kind of things. So you've kind of weighed those, those.
Speaker 2:You feel like you've been doing those things to an extent, but you only have we only have so many hours in the day. You know? Someone kind of jokingly asked, well, Lindsey, how many friends can we have? And I was like, well, I don't know. But I think that you do know inside when you can feel that I'm not able to be a friend to all of these people.
Speaker 2:You know, I kind of need to reevaluate kind of what I'm looking at. And so I think one of the things one of the ways that we do it, it doesn't have to be this, you know, I would well, though I would not recommend this with like, you know, if you're in a relationship with someone that you're dating, you know, I would recommend if you're breaking it off with them that you have an actual conversation and break it off with them. I don't think you've got to have a friendship breakup and say, hey, so we've been friends and it's been this and it's been that, but yeah, I think the Lord's telling me, you know, while all those things could be true, I don't think it has to be this exact kind of conversation. So I think instead, we'll certainly look different, you know, encouraged, you know, to continue to pray and ask the Lord for wisdom, but just kinda stepping back. Basically, a lot of times what I found is, you know, if tree friendships are parts of them are gonna have sacrifice and they're gonna have suffering and they're gonna have those kind of things, When you kinda start pulling those things back, because they add and they're the fertilizer for them, if you're not giving those things, then the friendship will oftentimes just kind of fizzle out without you having to do much work.
Speaker 2:And because I know you, I know that you're kinda like me and that we kinda like to be the helper in all things to all people. And so sometimes that's, kinda difficult to kind of when someone says, hey, you wanna do this or hey, let's go here. And they're like, I don't wanna go there, but I feel like I should go there. So maybe some of that is just kind of before you say yes or kind of responding, just kind of asking like, Lord, is this the best use of my time? Again, going back to that idea, that knowledge that we can't be, you know, close friends with everyone.
Speaker 2:So the Lord may be encouraging you to step away from one friendship only because He wants to instead deepen a friendship with someone else. And so if we're clinging so tightly because we don't wanna hurt someone's feelings, then we might miss somebody that's just sitting there right there around the corner. So I think we can do that, and I think we can bow out gracefully. It bowing out gracefully doesn't look like, hey, I'm tired of you. You know, bowing out gracefully usually just means kind of stepping back, and maybe if they have a question and say, seems like, you know, you can just say, well, you know, you know, you can respond however the spirit leads, but maybe that might be of, you know, I just felt like I just didn't have enough time, and I wanted to make sure that if I'm being if you think that I'm your closest friend, that I am responding in the way that I that that I should be and that I think a close friend would, and I don't really feel like that I have the time for that.
Speaker 2:So I think that's what I'd say for that. Any others? Okay. Connor, who's got the mic?
Speaker 5:I guess one thing kind of one thing I liked about how you, kinda gave your talk was just starting off not saying what you've done to be a friend, but what other people have done to be friends to you. So I think, like, there's, I guess, an element of grace involved in that. I guess just maybe expand upon that or how do we kind of take that into account? Like, when we're figuring out how to live in community, like, how do we just kind of, I mean, live by grace and be open to receiving when we're kind of tempted to do so much to make things work or think that we have to do everything to be a good friend ourselves. How, I guess, how how does grace play a role there?
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, part of it was I have a lot of examples of friendship on both the the both of the sides, and, the last thing that I wanted to do was somebody to if anything, I want someone to step away and see our my friendships that I have with other people and say they see Jesus in those. That's that's the goal, you know, that's the goal for me, especially even with people who aren't believers.
Speaker 2:I want them to look at my friendships and say, that's different than the way that I interact with my friends. What is going on with their friendships? They must have some kind of secret sauce, because then it opens up an opportunity to share. So I would say, you know, Scripture tells us to think, you know, humble ourselves and to think of others, you know, higher than ourselves. And so, when I'm kind of going about my friendships, a lot of times, I just I mean, I try hard not to just be thinking about me, and that's hard.
Speaker 2:I mean, that goes against, you know, like I said, you know, to begin with, it goes against everything that culture says. But I've had some really good examples of people who have done that, and I think I've been a really I've received that well as I've watched that of people who have just been a good friend for no other reason than they want to be a good friend to you. I've received friendship from other people, but I try really hard to be a friend to someone, not because I think that they're gonna give me anything in return. And so I would just kind of encourage you, you know, like you said, when you're starting off, especially even if you're kind of thinking this is a bit of a paradigm shift for you, this is the way that I've had a sweet mentor that, I don't know, I would guess say maybe kind of invited me into some of this thinking of friendship. Certainly it's been refined over the years, but some of these things go back to when I was 14 years old, in the way that I kind of, I mean, I was asking friends really tough questions when I was 14 and 15 that most people weren't doing, but I was doing that because these people that were mentoring me were telling me that that's what I should do, to be a friend.
Speaker 2:And so I would just encourage you that you don't have to do all these things. You know, you don't have to go out tomorrow and start making sacrifices for everybody and you know, saying you know, who who is suffering so that I can bear your burdens, you know. I would just say the first step, you know, like
Jeffrey Heine:I've said
Speaker 2:it a 1000000 times, but the first step would just be to pray, you know, and to ask the Lord, you know, who is it that you're calling me to be a friend to? And maybe who is it that, maybe I could kinda step toward to be a friend? You know, and then just kind of walking that that road just kind of one step at a time and just remembering that, you know, when you think that you're a good friend, you're not. I mean, like I said, I've I've botched this up a million times. When I was practicing and thinking about and writing these things out, I royally messed up a friendship, you know, and I'd kind of, you know, said, I was like, this is spiritual warfare, I'm preparing for this dog on friendship and all my friendships are falling apart.
Speaker 2:But I don't know if that was true or not. All I know is that, I don't do my job right. I don't do my role I play my role as a friend perfectly all the time. There are lots of times that I drop the ball. And so, giving myself grace, and thankfully, I have friends that give give me grace as well.
Speaker 2:But I don't know if that answers your question entirely, but I think I would just say, you know, starting small, you know, when you're when you're knowing that because friendships are ordained by the Lord, He gives us grace for that. I don't have to give myself a whole lot of grace. The lord gives me more grace than I could ever ask for, and so I'm grateful for that. Oh, okay.
Speaker 6:So you mentioned a couple of conversations you had with friends where it was either you asking the tough questions or people asking the tough questions to you. And so I just wanted to hear if you have any advice on maybe entering into a hard conversation like that with a friend, where you do wanna point them towards Jesus, but you want it to go well? You wanna maintain the friendship. And then also on the receiving end, how can you like, what are some tips on how to receive hard feedback like that from a friend?
Speaker 2:2 things. I would say one
Jeffrey Heine:one of
Speaker 2:the things that I, encourage my the girls that I kinda mentor and I actually had to pep talk myself with for this before I asked, my friend, you know, if she was struggling to get pregnant, because I didn't wanna ask her that question, like I said, for many, many reasons. But one of the things I would say, whenever I don't wanna ask a tough question, and we'll kinda go into some of those, you know, questions that we could ask. But whenever I don't want to, I ask myself, why is it that I don't want to ask this hard question of a friend? And for me, the answer is usually, because I don't want them to not be my friend. I don't want them to quit being my friend.
Speaker 2:And so if I ask them this question and they quit being my friend, then I don't have a friend anymore. So I'd rather just not ask the question. And my response to that, and both to myself and to those that I mentor, is that if that's the case, if you, don't ask the question because you don't want them to quit being your friend, What you actually have done, whether you realize it or not, is you've quit being their friend, because you've not asked the tough question that the Lord has convicted you to ask. So a lot of times I find, for myself included, that in in trying so hard not to risk losing the friendship, we effectively have walked away from our friendships because we didn't wanna lose them. And so, one, I would encourage you just to ask the tough question.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, and I didn't go into I I tried to share stories or I did share stories that I had for the most part part, gotten a 100% approval from friends, that I knew, if they were tough. There's one, I can give a little bit, but I will just share there. I I have 2. 1, I was I had a conversation with a friend. It was a really just kind of a it was a tough spot, and I felt like, in all honesty, after about 18 months of us butting heads on this topic and me asking tough questions and her not responding well, I really felt like whenever I asked her questions and I was trying to point her to the gospel and point her to Jesus, that it was shutting her down.
Speaker 2:And she did not wanna hear it and she was becoming hardened to the gospel. She was a believer, but she was becoming hardened. And so as I started praying about what are my next steps, I really felt like the best way to respond was to write her a letter and tell her what I thought, and give it to her and let the Holy Spirit do the work. And I hoped because it was a really good letter, like I spent like 3 weeks on it, and it was so kind. I mean I had a couple other people that kind of knew the situation read it and I was like, is this kind?
Speaker 2:Is this generous? Is she gonna be offended? You know, I said, I mean that's as good as you can get. You laid it out there. I mean I told her that I was gonna pray for her.
Speaker 2:I was gonna pray this exact prayer for prayer for her. Whenever she was ready, I was there. And she got the letter, and, I gave it to her. And she didn't say anything, and I didn't talk to her for 2 years. And so my initial kind of reaction kind of as, you know, kind of what you're saying, like, what do we do?
Speaker 2:Because when how do we do it to make sure we're getting the results that we want? But I know that, I was convicted to do those things. I prayerfully did them. I trust the Lord used them. A couple years later, she did come back and, she said that she was entirely sorry.
Speaker 2:She was really prideful and she we had a sweet reconciliation, of that friendship. But I would say I don't know that there's anything that we can do to necessarily guarantee the response. Couple things you can do, 1 for your own self, is just kind of asking if you kinda have a feeling sometimes. I don't know. I feel like sometimes with friends, I kinda have a feeling that they're about to say something, even if it's just kind of like right in the in the moment.
Speaker 2:Like, I'm kinda like, oh, it feels like they're about to kind of correct me on something. So I'm just kind of in my mind while I'm also listening, I'm just praying for the lord to give me a spirit of humility to hear what they say. Because if it's a dear friend of mine who loves the lord and wants to me to look more like Jesus and wants to point me to Jesus, then the things that she's saying, while they may not be fun to hear and while they may hurt, they're not being said to harm. And so even though it may be difficult for me to hear, sometimes I'll even have to say, I appreciate you sharing. I don't really want to talk about that right now, but maybe in a couple days, let's let's circle back.
Speaker 2:Whether that's you reaching out to me or I'll reach out back back out to you and say, okay. And then I've had a little bit of time, because it's hard, you know, I've had a little bit of time to kind of process it. And I said, okay, Lord, what I mean clearly she brought this to my attention for some reason, and so help me to receive that and help me to be able to kinda process that well. So that's kinda how I would say that I kind of caveat that. On the other side, of what does it look like, you know, what are some tough questions.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think when we're praying about it, the holy spirit will convict us and will give us, you know, a specific question. And sometimes not, you know, so my, easy question that I kinda threw out before is a question that my friend and I often ask and that's as opposed to, you know, picking up the phone and asking, how are you doing? How are things going? Whatever. We ask, how's your heart before the lord?
Speaker 2:And that's a little bit different. Actually, it's a lot different when you actually think about it, because it's not even just saying, how's your heart? You know? But it's asking, how's your heart before the lord? And sometimes my answer to that is, it's not.
Speaker 2:You know? I mean, I'm very closed off, very walled up, and sometimes it's like it's it's really raw because I feel like I've been pouring all these things out and we're able to kinda have some conversations about that. Another thing, just kind of encouraging, how to do it. I would say a lot of times, I prefer to have conversations, maybe going on a walk, side to side, whether you're doing something in the car, you know, things that where you're just not just sitting there and you're like, this is super intense. You know, those kinds are some sometimes things are a little bit more hard.
Speaker 2:So and maybe even I think just kinda for the sake of helping a friend out, just saying like, I'd love to just be able to the next time we get together just kind of have a conversation about something. You know? You don't have to go into super full details and sometimes your friend maybe like me and be like, conversation about what? I mean, but and you're just like, no no big deal. You know, just wanna be able to just or can we get lunch just the 2 of us and just kinda chat and catch up?
Speaker 2:I'd love to just kinda hear a little bit more about how you are or, you know, whatever it is. And I would just encourage you certainly if it's a struggle with sin that you feel like your friend is walking in. I think a lot of times the scriptures are often, kind of twisted around and we feel like, oh, I mean, I couldn't say this to my friend because she's gonna think that I'm judging her and she's gonna think that I'm perfect and all that, and that's not true. You know, as believers, we are called to walk alongside someone and to encourage them to look more like Christ. And so when we don't do that, and we see them living in active sin, we are not being a friend, and we're also not doing what scriptures have asked us to do in in terms of, you know, walking alongside other believers.
Speaker 2:So I would just kind of encourage you, again, not fun conversations by any means. But I will say as you kinda go along in the friendships, you'll see some that receive those things well and some that don't. And I would say there are a couple of friends of mine that I mean, we don't love it when we get our sin called out by somebody else, but at the same time, over over time as we just kinda continue to do it, I'm really grateful. And in the end, I'd much rather that friend call me out for something than somebody else that doesn't even know me or somebody says, well, you heard about Lindsay Smith. You know, so, I'm grateful.
Speaker 2:But that does just kinda take some wisdom and also some kind of looking back, but you gotta start somewhere, so might as well start there. Mhmm. Mhmm. Right here.
Speaker 7:I have, I guess, I kinda been struggling with some, like, how to look at friendships sometimes in the work world with with other Christians, like balancing, are they a coworker? Are they a fellow Christian? Because especially, you know, when you run into tough situations, like, it can affect, you know, jobs and things like that. So I guess, would you have, you know, I guess, any input or any advice on that? Like, similar to you, you know, I'm one of those people where everybody will tell me things, whether I like it or not.
Speaker 7:I have knowledge, and it's just like, you know, crap, I don't know what to do with this. And so, you know, sharing, oversharing, just kind of how do you handle situations with fellow believers in a work situation like that?
Speaker 2:Sure. I've worked in lots of different spots. Some places, I've worked in, you know, ministry kind of level. Right now, I'm working in a secular job, and I will say that I love it. One of the reasons is because it's a mix of folks who are both believers and non believers, and I think one of the greatest gifts that the Lord gives us is the opportunity to go into our workplace and to be shining the light of Christ.
Speaker 2:You know? And so, certainly, there are things that that you can and that you can't do in those settings. You know? I'm not going to my workplace every day and bringing a devotion. You know, but I think by the way that I'm living my life, hopefully, it's in a way so that people notice that there's a little bit of a difference about me maybe in the way that I go about doing my work and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And what has happened is because maybe I, you know, maybe gratefully or happily served someone that most people wouldn't maybe happily and gratefully serve, what's happened is people have said, that's a little bit different, and I've been able to kind of pick up on people who are believers in the workforce. And I'm really grateful for that, because I think one of the things, you know, I love love what I get to do and I love my job, my coworkers are phenomenal, but it's a job and it's a job that is filled with people who are fallen, and so nothing is perfect. And so for me, I'm really grateful for people who are believers in, my company, because we're able to sit together and we're able to pray for our company, we're able to pray for our leaders. When people, you know, on our team or, you know, another coworker seems to be frustrating us, I'm able to look, that coworker in the eyes. She's able to look me in the eyes, and we're able to remind one another of truth and scripture.
Speaker 2:So it's not this, at least for me, I mean and certainly, it's fine. I mean, there was one of my first jobs out of school, there was a a group of, folks that we met weekly and we did a bible study, and that was that worked really well for, for the format and where I was and working and it just it worked well. That doesn't really work for the job that I have now just because of the schedules that we have and things like that, but we still have those just, times we're able to even if it's shooting a message and just letting somebody know that, hey, I know that this is on your plate today. I know that this has been something that you've just been really kinda struggling with even, you know, this the dynamics in this relationship and just want you to know I'm praying for you. So I think work is a really big part of our life, and so we certainly should be incorporating super super difficult.
Speaker 2:But for where the times where there is someone and you're just like, I just don't really know how to do that because like you said, it is kind of awkward. Like, I don't really know what that looks like. I would say you can start really really small, even if it's somewhere where you see, again, this would maybe be kind of a little correction kinda part, but somewhere where someone is saying, oh, this is just so ridiculous that we have to do x, y, and z. Just a small conversation, not necessarily, you know, blasting it out to the, you know, entire, you know, workforce, but just saying, hey, I know it seems like that, but remember, we have an opportunity to, you know, shine the light of Christ in the way that we react to that. And so I would love some accountability for my own self and would love for to kind of invite us to kinda get to do that together.
Speaker 2:So, it doesn't take you don't have to do that with lots of people, but you can even do that with 1 or 2. And for me, that has made come into work so much more, encouraging and fun to know that, you know, it's not just all about what me and what I do for this job, it's really it has a kingdom impact, and I'm reminded of that a little bit more when I'm partnering with other co laborers, both for Christ and for the company. So Oh. You've already asked too.
Speaker 3:You've talked a lot about spiritual friendships. How do you, I mean, mean, this is gonna sound terrible because you could probably turn this on me and be like, yeah. If I was evaluating you, I probably shouldn't have picked you. But how do you, like, with coworkers or with just with anybody, how do you not end up trying to have a spiritual friendship with somebody that's really not, I guess, I hate the word spiritual maturity, but is not going to encourage you, you know, how do you kind of evaluate if somebody is gonna be a good spiritual friend or not?
Speaker 2:I think you just test it out and see. You know, that's, you know, you're praying about it and you're asking the Lord, you know, and if you feel convicted, you're stepping into that water. And if you start saying, oh, I thought that looked like, you know, I'm using an analogy here, I thought that looked like a dolphin, I thought that looked like a dolphin, I'm walking toward it, I'm walking toward it. That is a shark. And then you start turning around and going the other way.
Speaker 2:So, you know, if you're looking for spiritual friendship and, you know, one just saying it really does. I mean, a lot of times people are like, how do you know if it's the Lord? I'm like, you know what, sometimes I don't, but I test it. And then I compare that and I see does this line up or the things that are happening, do they line up with the word? And if they do, I just keep walking and just trusting that the lord is is in that, you know.
Speaker 2:So I would say if you just kinda are saying, maybe this person, I'm kinda feeling like a tug toward them. I don't know for sure if that's right or not, but I feel this tug. So start walking in that and just see. See how do they respond. Do they do they respond in ways that are pleasing and glorifying to the lord?
Speaker 2:And if they do, then you kinda can continue to walk in that. And if they don't, then you just kinda start backing up and start saying, okay, lord, I don't really know if that was it. I thought I heard you, but maybe I didn't. So is there somebody else that you would have me to enter into this deep friendship with? So, certainly reminding you that no one's perfect.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I said, I mean, it's not like you can say, well, these things were rocking and rolling. We've been going great for 6 months, and then she said this one thing. So I guess she's not good anymore. You know, that's we all have, struggles, we all have things that we're gonna kinda go through and we're not gonna be perfect. But I would say you're just kind of, not that I'm constantly testing my friends by any means, but especially at the very beginning when you're kind of walking to try to figure out, I would say you're just kind of walking that road and just asking, you know, lord, is is this and kinda almost give them not give them tests, but, you know, you just give them some things.
Speaker 2:You just ask them some tough questions. See how they respond. See if see if they respond to asking you some kind of difficult questions, you know. And if they're not, then, you know, that may not be the best use of your time. So
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. We got time we got time for one last question, if there's one. We got one last question. Otherwise, will you join me in thanking Lindsay Smith for being with us tonight? Thank you so much.
Jeffrey Heine:So just a quick reminder, our next, theological talkback is going to be on July 10th with Doug Webster, on prayer and looking specifically at the Psalms as Jesus' prayer book. And so we hope to see you then, if not before. Have a good night.