Happy Fri-yay! 🎉
This week we finished Part Two and learned about three more mirrors, or areas we tend to make all “about us.” Here are this week’s questions:
Chapter 7: When You Make Your Friendships About You
*How do we tend to make friendship and rejections about us?
*How is Jesus the example of the perfect friend?
Chapter 8: When You Make Your Calling About You
*This chapter discusses two major consequences of making our callings about us. They are:
- dissatisfaction
- disobedience
Have you seen these two consequences in your life? How so?
*“Christ-centered calling is the best way to love the people around us” (pg. 111) How do we fight the pull to drift inward and make it all about us?
Chapter 9: When You Make Your Church About You
*Have you had a “thing” at church that you were picky about ? How might you reframe that “thing” in your mind to teach you rather than frustrate you?
*Though the church is not all about us, it is for us. How is church community a gift to us from the Lord?
Scripture of the Week
John 15:13
Colossians 3:23
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Prayer of the Week
Father God, we are sorry for all the ways we make things all about us. We know our natural human tendency is to drift inward and away from You. Would You continually retune our hearts and get our focus on You? Help us to put You first and to live out of Your love and sacrifice. Help our actions to line up with a self-forgetfulness focus. Thank You for walking with us each step of the way and for loving us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen
For Next Week
*Read Part Three (Chapters 10-14)
See you next Friday for our last discussion questions in July!
Before I entered junior high, my family moved to a small town in Missouri. To a minuscule town. I honestly think there were more cows than people. Coming from California, it took some time to get used to the environment. Making – really finding – friends took even longer.
I had made some really close friends in elementary school and when we found out we were moving, my friends and I promised to “K.I.T.” – that’s the 80s’ version of saying, “Keep In Touch.” Turns out, we were doing a form of texting before it existed! 😂
And we did K.I.T. By writing letters. Using actual pens. On real paper. With Lisa Frank stickers (look it up if you’re unsure what those are 😆). It was so exciting to hear my parents say, “You’ve Got Mail.” – which came from a physical mailbox! 🤪
Being and staying connected to my friends particularly during my time in Missouri (two years, though it seemed like forever and initially there was no set time limit) was important to me because life there was different and it could feel lonely. What I’ve recently realized though, is how much my perspective on and expectation of friendship were highly influenced by that period of my life.
I really enjoy meeting people and am pretty easy to get to know. One important element is that I’m a “lifer” friend. I’m devoted and dependable, 100%. While these are good qualities, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that 1) not everyone is a “lifer” friend and 2) there can be weaknesses associated with these strengths.
I expect a lot of myself and that expectation is placed onto my friendships as well. I love friendship and want it to last forever! ☺️ However, I’ve discovered that my default perspective and subconscious expectation has been: “All friendships are lifelong.” As a result, I’ve deemed it my responsibility (in a lot of ways) to keep friendships going. I’m usually the first to reach out, don’t like to wait too long before the next interaction (e.g., text, call, or get-together), and can get anxious when I haven’t heard from someone in awhile.
While friends were my “lifeline” in junior high, I’ve realized I’ve been placing an unnecessary pressure not only on myself (to keep friendships going) but also on those I’ve met since then.
Rarely have I felt rejected by friends or been lonely as a result of friendship, but I think this may partly be because I have been so invested (due to being insecure) in making sure I don’t get rejected or become lonely. Basically, I’ve been working overtime to keep a lot of friendships going so I look and feel good. Somehow I never saw it in this light until reading this week’s chapters!
The “aha” moment for me has been that while friendship is great, when you make it about yourself, it loses it’s purpose, and fun. 😉 I’d have never thought that I’d have centered friendship around myself; I never saw it as feeding my own insecurities, but rather as truly “investing in others.” I really do care for people so that’s why I never saw it that way.
So does that mean I should no longer be a devoted, dependable friend? Absolutely not! For me, it means assessing why I’m doing something. Is it to make myself feel better, or am I genuinely considering the other person? I like how the author says, “…unity is something we will have to fight for.” (Page 122) She states this in the church community context, but I believe it also relates in other areas of life, including friendship. Sometimes friendship comes easy, sometimes it doesn’t. There are so many different factors and seasons that play into this, as the author also reveals. The greatest truth I know about friendship, though, is it’s worth it. And that’s why we keep coming back for more. But we have to do it lovingly, selflessly, gratefully. “This attitude of gratitude also directs our focus to the Giver.” (Page 124)
In junior high, hundreds of miles away from my friends, I didn’t yet know what God was doing. Now I see how He was allowing those friendships to strengthen and grow, and teaching me endurance and perseverance.
I’m so grateful for the friends God has brought into my life! And I’m thankful I now have a more accurate view of friendship – that “[they] are for us, but they are not about us.” (Page 102)
K.I.T! What a blast from the past! I miss writing and folding letters with all our fun acronyms 😉
Friendship is such an involved thing… I too, am guilty of making it all about me. I tend to be insecure and not reach out to people. Being an introvert doesn’t really help in this area either. It’s like that silly joke: How do introverts make friends? Usually an extrovert adopts them! But I am realizing that this tendency of not reaching out is an excuse as well and makes it all about me because I am only thinking about myself in this situation. I’m not thinking about how the other people will feel. I usually want to hide in the background but there are lots of others who are doing the same and waiting for someone to extend an invitation or say hello. My problem too is that I only have a certain capacity for people – it’s like a cellphone battery that needs recharging constantly. People tend to “drain” me and I’ve found that I am careful about giving my all to people. It’s not that I don’t want to give my all to my “real” friends. I definitely want to be there for them and chat until 4am but I only seem to have a small capacity for this. One or two good friends, maybe three and I’m probably maxed out. Again that makes it about me, doesn’t it? 🙁 I’m finding that I need to remember that God will give me strength for things like hospitality and friendship and I need to focus on that instead!