Pursued by God: Friendships: Part 1

Looking back on the friendships of my past, they were often marked by great happiness and conversely, great sadness and pain; sometimes in rapid succession. ?The happiness was in spending time with a friend who's mere presence can brighten my mood and give me a sense of being loved and accepted. ?Sadness and pain upon the realization that the label "close friend" or "good friend" seems to have a totally different meaning to me than it does for so many others.

"Love does not give up on people when they are struggling. It does not give in to despair in the face of extreme difficulty. It does not declare that someone?s heart can never change or that a broken community can never be healed. Love hopes all things. Understand that whenever we give up hope, this is really a failure to love, because love hopes."

I suppose it would help if I clarified my ideas of what types of friendships I have experienced. ?First, "friend" is not a label that I throw around loosely. ? I try to be realistic in identifying the type of relationships I have with people. ?For the most part, I don't consider co-workers to be friends. ?With few exceptions, I always look at them as acquaintances. ?I would also apply the acquaintance label to most people I socialized with at certain places such as bars. ?These were people with whom my contact was limited to certain times or places. ?If I removed myself from those places, whether it be the bar, work, or even church, I would not necessarily maintain contact with them or continue on in any type of relationship. ?They are all relationships that are conditional on some factor other than a mutual, voluntary choice to have someone be a part of your life.

"...love does not rejoice at wrongdoing. ?It delights not? wrote Henry Drummond, ?in exposing the weakness of others.? ?What love does instead is to ?rejoice with the truth.?

When a relationship rose to the level of friendship, my level of commitment to the person changed. ?I pursued a variety of activities and socialization with them. ?This would include experiencing things that they were interested in as well as them being involved with things that interested me. ?The level of personal sharing increased - maybe a certain level of emotional intimacy marked by a willingness to risk vulnerability. ?If things progressed and the friendship seemed to be growing, I guess at least in my own head, it would reach a point where I would consider the other person a close or good friend. ?This would typically be someone I would ?assume I could count on to be there for me in times of need, and someone who's own needs I would focus greatly on. ?In fact, I would often be willing to put in more effort in addressing the needs of a good friend than I would addressing my own. ?What invariably would occur when I reached this level of friendship with another man were recurring doubts about the friendship. ?These doubts and insecurities would often result in anger, depression, disappointment, and temporary withdrawal from the friend. ?I would find myself feeling that the person did not truly like me; that what I perceived as friendship was nothing more than their "using" me for some personal gain; as if they allowed me to think I was their friend in order to profit from me in some way. ?Recurring thoughts would creep up that this "friend" really doesn't want to get to know me, and in fact doesn't even really like me; that they have some ulterior motive.

"If we are easily provoked, if we tend to get angry in the wrong way about the wrong things, and if our anger is out of proportion to the situation, this is clear evidence of a loveless heart."

I think many of these feelings would arise due to having some sort of sense of inadequacies as a person. ?I often felt that if friends really knew me, their is no way that they would still want to have a relationship with me. ?And looking back on these past friendships, it is probably likely that I let very few people know the real me. ?In many cases, I fabricated, exaggerated, or minimized certain aspects of myself in order to be more likeable. ?I would also tend to rush into doing things for others. ?I searched for ways in which I could use what I felt were my strengths as a means to address or fill needs they had. ?I determined those "needs" of theirs through my perceptions of what I thought their weaknesses were. ?This was surely a means of making myself more valuable to my friend and my exploitation of their weaknesses were desperate attempts to draw them closer to me...to manipulate them into friendship because it was what I wanted. ?In many respects, I was driven so intensely to find closeness with other guys that I would force that closeness in any way that I could. ?I was often impatient in allowing relationships to develop on their own...as if it is was only by proving myself useful that anyone would ever be drawn into a mutual friendship with me. ?In effect, that seeing me as I really am would draw no one toward closeness with me. ?At times I even used sex as a tool to create a sense of being close to them - in a way that through bringing them pleasure through that sexual act I would further draw them to me and it would be some sort of intimate secret that we shared; perhaps thinking that these shared experiences made for greater closeness.

"this is something else that love does: it trusts God to provide what is needed."

Oftentimes, I would be in a constant state of analyzing the relationship to determine just how stable it was and if their were any impending threats to it on the horizon. ?This fear of losing the friend would often lead to behavior that could best be described as needy or clingy. ?In the fear of losing someone important to me, I would grab on as tight as I could and ironically this only served to push the person further away. ?This fear that caused me to hold tight to the friend clearly demonstrated the need for love I felt, yet at the same time displayed a certain selfishness by it's attempts to control another person, rather than respect their right to choose their own friends as well.

"...the real issue for most of us is that we always want to place limits on our love. We are ready to give, but only when we have something left over. We are willing to care as long as it isn?t too inconvenient. We are able to love provided that people love us back."

I don't know to what extent same sex attraction played a role in this behavior. ?I think more likely, alongside my struggles with homosexuality, this intense need to feel close to other men has it's roots in my childhood and my experiences with my father. ?Likely their are other factors at play too.

"God even gives us the grace to go back to people who throw our love away and love them all over again."

Since coming to faith a couple years ago I have felt that this aspect of my life has improved greatly. ?The old ?attempts at manipulation through sex were pretty easy to leave behind. ?I am far less dependent on friends when it comes to my own feelings of self-worth and security. ?My need for other people - particularly men - to meet certain needs is still very real, however it has clearly diminished as my reliance on Christ has increased. ?It is far more difficult to feel inadequate and unlovable when you trust in God's love for you! ?I have recently gotten to the point of confidence in myself through what God tells me I am in Christ. ?While far from perfect, I've seemed to reach a level, at least in my own mind, of being in the process of developing healthy relationships with other men. ?I don't feel those same desires to manipulate people into friendship with me. ?The only friendships I desire at this point are from other people who freely chose to have a presence in my life; and base that decision on the facts - not on a "me" that is made up or contrived. ?I'm getting tired of hearing and saying the word "transparency", but at the same time I think it is important for me to be authentic with others. ?I spent too many years forcing friendships based on my desire to have certain people as a friend, and now it seems right to allow friendships to develop based on the other persons choice to be in relationship with me. ?It is a letting go of control over situations and people and putting trust in the Lord to meet my needs for companionship and love in the way that He see's best. ?My way has never worked well, and at this point I find myself at the place where my life in this world is likely more than half over, and I have very few friends to show for all of my misguided efforts.

"God will make sure that everything turns out right in the end. So love keeps on waiting and waiting for the day when God will wipe away all our tears."

I wanted to give a general overview of my experiences with friendship with this post so I added "Part 1" to the title. ?I don't know how many "parts" this Friendship series will end up having, but I feel like I have a lot I want to say regarding friendship; how it relates to the person with same sex attraction, and how I feel that the growing awareness of homosexuality over the past century has really damaged the ability of men to be in close, loving, non-sexual, Biblical relationships with each other out of fear of being labeled as "gay". ?I also want to write about the interaction between our calling to be a brother and how it applies to our friendships. ?Additionally, I have recently had an experience which has caused me some serious doubts and disappointment about the progress I have made in developing healthy friendships and I may incorporate that into a part 2 or 3 as well.

The quotes that you see throughout this post come from the book "Loving The Way Jesus Loves", by Phil Ryken. ?I HIGHLY recommend it! ?While these quotes I chose aren't directly related to friendship, this book has had a significant impact on how I view others around me, and has certainly helped me in overriding my often unhealthy emotional kind of love with a more Biblically directed love for others.

Source: http://dannavin.blogspot.com/2012/08/friendships-part-1.html

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