How to Do the Hard and Holy Work of Faithful Friendship
“So who’s mentoring whom here?” my friend asked with a mischievous grin.
Good question!
When friends challenge one another with shared books, Scripture reading, and transparent prayer, everyone is sharpened and restored in a way that uniquely shows the love of God. Janice Peterson calls this “spiritual friendship,” and has reached back into her long memory for the purpose of sharing her friend Gertrude, the woman who poured lemonade and listened to Jan’s teen-age thoughts and dreams.
Being seen and valued by a friend who was “always present, always caring,” set Peterson on a course to be that person for others, to live given, and to love well. In Becoming Gertrude: How Our Friendships Shape Our Faith, Jan remembers lemonade on the porch and shares her deep conviction that friendships can be life-altering in all the best ways.
A spiritual friendship differs from mentoring in that no one takes the lead. There’s no resident expert or hierarchy at work. Instead, spiritual friendship is characterized by an unstructured giving and receiving, “appreciating the gifts individuals have to offer. It’s being willing to share when you need to share and learn when you need to learn. It’s caring for the well-being of the other person, and letting her care for you as well.” (xviii)
Ministering alongside her husband, author and pastor Eugene Peterson, Janice seized the life-enriching opportunities that her role as a pastor’s wife provided for investing in relationships. With rich insights lifted from Romans 12, she has distilled for her readers five elements that have infused her most formative relationships:
Caring
“Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” (Romans 12:1 MSG)
We become caring people with practice, strengthening our awareness of others like a muscle. The author witnessed this outward focus modeled in her long-ago friend Gertrude and has concluded that regardless of gifting and personality, anyone can choose to put others first and pay attention to the needs of others.
As she matured, Peterson found her own caring heart drawn to the larger world. She began to serve on the Fair Housing Committee in her area and to practice cooking and eating habits that demonstrated her concern for the challenge of world hunger.
To become more caring:
· Pay attention to those who are doing it well and copy them.
· Push down your pride and receive unselfish caring from others.
· Take note of the needs of the people God has placed right in front of your eyes.
Acceptance
“Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” (Romans 12:2 MSG)
Peterson warns, “A spiritual friend is someone you enjoy being with, but you may not always find the friendship simple or straightforward.” (30) As a “classic extrovert,” Janice finds it easy to take others at face value, but connecting with those who are more challenging to love can take the special effort of seeking to see the world from their perspective. Ironically, the first step in accepting others may be the task of self-acceptance.
To become more accepting of others:
· Connect with them by participating in the things that interest them.
· Spend time connecting with God to learn His heart of acceptance for you and for others.
Service
“Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.” (Romans 12:11, 12 MSG)
Living her way into God’s calling upon her life, Janice Peterson swam upstream in the 1960’s when other women were leaving their homes in droves to seek employment. Called to be a pastor’s wife and a mother, she has served and loved in her own unique way, motivating others to do likewise by her example.
To serve well:
· Be ready to spring into action, loving your community in concrete ways.
· Serve courageously when God points out a need that you are able to meet.
Hospitality
“Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. . . Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.” (Romans 12:13, 16 MSG)
Hospitality puts into practice the caring, serving, and accepting that friendship requires. Taking time to rightly align her readers’ understanding of the term, Peterson defines hospitality through a biblical lens: “the welcoming reception and treatment of guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.” (67) The welcome of hospitality is a bridge to wholeness as we generously receive others and let them know us, warts and all.
To become more hospitable:
· Forget about “entertaining” guests and just enjoy them, feed them, and listen to them.
· Start with your family and move in ever widening circles.
Encouragement
“Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.” (Romans 12:14-16 MSG)
The church provides the perfect backdrop for mutual encouragement as believers motivate one another to acts of service, use of God-given gifts, and a continual focus on God and His faithfulness. Reorienting one another gently toward an others-orientation, we discover the truest and most healthy version of ourselves, and then offer that up as a gift to God. In the process, we also become a gift to others, a spiritual friend, putting on display the caring, accepting, serving, hospitable, encouraging heart of our relational God.
Many thanks to NavPress for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.
Here in the United States, July 4th is Independence Day, the day we celebrate our right as a people to create our own futures and pursue our own dreams . . . free from oppressive and dictatorial rule.
But let us remember, too, that when it comes to our relationship with that Divine Intelligence that is commonly called God, every day is Independence Day . . . and should be recognized and celebrated as such.
Each and every day, you have the freedom—the independence—to choose what you want to have in life, what you want to do in life, and what you want to be in life. And you have the freedom to pursue those goals in any way that you see fit.
That doesn’t mean that accomplishing those goals is totally up to you and you alone. Quite the contrary. You are continually receiving divine assistance. You are constantly being divinely guided and supported in fulfilling your heart’s desires in the most beneficial way possible. But you will never—ever—be forced to do anything that you don't choose to do.
You always have the freedom to follow divine guidance . . . or not. You can choose to row with the divine flow, and reach your chosen destinations with effortless ease. Or, you can choose to take a more arduous route, and row against the flow by ignoring or resisting divine direction. It's up to you.
The wonderful thing about your freedom of choice is this: Every choice you make in life—whether it is divinely guided or unguided, divinely inspired or ego-driven—gives you an opportunity to learn from your experience, grow in wisdom and compassion, and ultimately discover more about your own divinely loving and creative nature.
But again, it's your choice. You can choose to learn and grow from the experiences you create . . . or not.
Here's to the joy that comes from creating our lives and living our lives by choice. May we always be grateful for the freedom we have to do that.
