Friendship Advice | Toxic Friends | Personal Opinion as Christians

I remember our third meeting. After Sunday Church my friend and I spent like 4 hours at Starbucks and laughing like old friends. Talking about "friendship" for me is very personal and I love my friends. We both love our friends. She had 5 questions in her pocket and I gave her my personal answers. 

Question number 1

I feel like with friendship when you are Christian, there is like too extreme, you can have only Christian friends and then you have kind of like coming from your old life you can only have secular friends. Do you think that is okay to have both extreme or do you think everyone needs a mixture?

Answer

Definitely it can be a huge temptation you want one and the other that is more comfortable, when you know the people in our lives for a long time, especially there is a past or memories of any kind that we cling to that. And especially when you first become a Christian, you definitely need people of all ages especially the people who pour into us, very well minded, positive, giving us advice, being there for us because that is how we grow. We need people who push us that way.

Question number 2

Should we pray about who we become friends with?

Answer

I personally think it can become so cliché that we pray about it, but I believe it is very important that we have that tool. I mean the people that we spend most of our time with is friends and who we spend our time with is most likely who we will become as well. So by being prayerful is not only allowing God to be a focus within our friendship, but it is also a self-check, like an evaluation, “are these people good for me?”.

Question number 3

In my mind, I organized my friends into like, friends that I helped grow, which is mostly like Christians who are on a different walk. And then there is like friends that we both love each other grow. And then there is like people who helped me grow, more like a leader role. So if no one fits in those categories, do you think that they are not worth spending time on? Is that sounds harsh? Because you are investing time right?

Answer

To me, I do not have a whole lot of time to just do that. I so much rather like invest in a few friends. I think that also it is important to have those people you can pour into  because we are given knowledge to be able to spread and I think that is also having people pour into you, or in a mentor form is also super important at any point no matter your ages you know. You can grow and you can learn no matter what. So I think those are really safe good category and I think obviously there will be people that kind of come and go and it is okay.

Question number 4

How do you know when you need to cut a friend off / distant / know they are toxic?

Answer

Well I think that I have had a lot of friends in my life that have been both positive and negative and I find that a lot of times back in high school uni age, people were so insecure you know and I was just like thinking that I engaged my bunch of space off on how they can contribute to my life as long as they are pulling me to do things that are not good, or being overly negative, or overly pessimistic not supporting me on good things. I feel like you really have to watch the negative friends.

Question number 5

There is often times and seasons where people leave or something happens and they are leaving. How do you feel about that? Because when I invested in a friendship, I love my friends. If we are friends, I always hoped we will be friends forever until we die. I want a long term friendship. I really love my friends but when things changed I do not really know how to go from there?

Answer

I have actually had a lot of friends that are coming on through out my life and I think that I really have found out even in the loneliest spot when all of my friends left me, I knew that there is a reason for it. You know every time that happened it was just like,”okay God I don’t know what the heck you were doing.” But then down the line even like in a couple years down I was like,”Oh my Gosh I was friends with them, I don’t know what I have done.” Even good friends, they go through stuff that could bring you down. I think one of the fun things, when you buy new shoes, you know they are going to wear out one day and then you have one that are going to last forever. You just have to believe that if God takes your friends not because you have done anything wrong, not because you were not worthy. It just means that God might have new and better friends for you.

You need to pray for healing, pray for the person that hurt you, we believe in a way that help you grow. Like you forgive the person and you become healed. Pray for peace and healing. God will bring you better friends, whether it is a new one or an old one from your past. Just be happy about it.

Cheers x 

Dry Seasons

Yes dry seasons. I am talking about dry seasons. If you don’t know what dry season is, for me personally dry season is when you feel completely disconnected, numb, discouraged, kind of not motivated to do anything and there is to do with God. Like you don’t have any motivation to go to church or pray or worship or you just don’t feel that fire anymore.

The first thing I want to say is that this is a hundred percent normal in Christian life, so if you haven’t gone through a dry season, you will go through a dry season. Everything is in season.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-22 ESV

There is a time for a dry season and there is a time for a Jesus yes season. If we didn’t have dry seasons and we were just on a spiritual high all the time, I don’t think there would be any growth in our lives because nothing would change. There would be a season of time when you have heaviness and you feel so weak that you have to lean on God and really find the energy within ourselves to ask for help. And to understand having a dry season which means gaining knowledge, learning and keep learning.

There isn’t like a special magical answer here that is going to make you fall in love with Jesus right away. But you have to push through it, you have to get up every day, you have to try and pray. I mean honestly it is great. Because you know our God is so cool that we could be like,”God I don’t feel you and it sucks. Like I want to feel you but I don’t know what happen, like is there anything in my life going on that I need to check or just help me to feel you again and help me like speak to me in your word and help me feel your word." Just be raw, be organic. He wants that. I mean you have to be real with God, continue to pray, continue to try read your bible. If you don’t, don’t beat yourself up. I am not saying that don't read your bible, but like if you don’t, don't let the guilt consumed you. Try to do the normal things that you do even if it is numb, because trust me, it is working in your heart even if you don’t feel like it is.

A huge thing that changed my life this year recently is I started joining a new community. I can pray with people and be surrounded by other people who love God. It is just encouraging. Like it is hard to go and be untouched and even if you feel you are untouched, like you will see see that it is starting to change you. I strongly recommend that if you are going through a dry season or being in any season of your life and you get plucked into a church, it is completely worth it.