How to Be a Friend

By Charles F. Stanley

Are you lonely? The Lord’s desire is not only that you have a close, satisfying relationship with Him but that you have satisfying and enriching personal relationships with other people. Someone has said, “To have a friend, you must be a friend.” Let me explain what I believe is necessary for a person to be a good friend.

People who want to have friends must be willing to hear another person’s secrets and keep them in confidence. They must be willing to risk sharing hurts and joys. They must be understanding of another person’s failures and shortcomings and painful memories. And they need to be willing to make a mistake or let another person make a mistake. People who want friends must be willing to be vulnerable.

The Lord desires for you to develop friendships. Ask Him to guide you into satisfying and mutually beneficial relationships with other people. Say to the Lord, “Lord, please provide for me friends who will speak the truth and help me to live in a way that is pleasing to You, friends who will love me and who will receive love from me, friends with whom I can share laughter and sorrow, friends with whom I can converse freely.”

Then look for the opportunities to build friendships that God brings your way:

Say yes to social invitations with godly people.
Get involved with your church and with various groups within the church. Be faithful in your attendance and in your participation in group functions. Get to know the people.
Invite others to join you for lunch or after-church brunch.
As you get to know people, look for areas of common interest or mutual concern. Find ways in which you can get involved in problem-solving tasks with people. Feed the homeless or visit members of your church who are homebound. Help with the children’s choir or a group that provides assistance to missionary families.

Tell what the Lord has done for you and how He has helped you through difficult times in the past. Your story will be an encouragement to the person who hears it, and in turn, the individual may feel more open in sharing something of the personal journey with you.

Not everybody you attempt to become friends with is likely to turn into a close friend. However, unless you take some risks and make some attempts at forging a friendship, you’ll never know who might become a friend and who won’t!

Your Dependency Must Remain on the Lord

The Lord may send someone into your life who will satisfy your longing to be with another person—as a friend, a confidant, or a spouse. That person must always be seen as an extension of God’s presence, not as a replacement for it.

We must never become so dependent on others that we rely on them emotionally to satisfy our needs, to meet our desires, or to fulfill us completely. No person can truly do that, no matter how wonderful or how loving the person is.

Too often, someone who expects another to provide complete fulfillment clings or continually cries out for attention and affection from that friend or spouse. The heart’s cries often push away the other person rather than attract the person. And when the other person moves away emotionally or physically, the person who is crying out for intimacy feels rejected. When God finds that one person is relying on another human being to do what only He can do, He often finds a way to end that relationship.

Once we recognize that only God can satisfy our loneliness, we are in a healthier position to receive the love and affections of persons He sends into our lives. We can be involved in a healthy, loving, give-and-receive relationship with them.

God desires for you to have friends, and above all, to know Him as your Friend of friends. It is only the Lord who never pulls away from a relationship, who never backs out, who never gives up on a person, who never is drained, who always has more to give, and who invites more dependency.

You can say with confidence, “Lord, I know you don’t want me to be lonely. I believe that You will be the total and complete satisfaction for loneliness in my life. I trust to you to fill the void that I feel. I trust You to provide me the friends on this earth who are good, right and pleasing in Your sight.”

When you trust in the Lord to be the Source of your joy and your deep need for companionship, you’ll find that you are able to have healthy friendships. And true friendship banishes loneliness.

Adapted from “The Source of My Strength,” by Charles F. Stanley, 1994, pp.18-26.