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2 Friendship Killers: Part Two - Failure to Rejoice


Four years ago I wrote the first part of this blog series.  My hope was to complete Part 2 within the week!  But here we are, several years later! Better late than never, I guess?  My health is quite bad, and it became increasingly hard to concentrate.  Migraines had crowded into the mess of other health issues, and that's why I struggled to continue writing.  If anything, my health is worse now, but I would like to try and overcome the obstacles of pain, headaches and poor concentration to write here occasionally.  My desire is to record some of my thoughts for my daughter to be able to look back at when she is grown.  

In part one, I shared that we can hurt our friendships when we fail to enter into their sorrows and pain and walk prayerfully with them.  When we choose our own comfort and happiness over bearing painful burdens, we become fair-weather friends.  We fail to emulate Christ as He lays down His life for His friends.  "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). 

Friendship is a precious gift from God.  But deep, meaningful friendships are vanishing in a world of social media, busy schedules, and changing priorities. 

Let's look again at this short little verse and exhortation in Romans 12:15.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

I love this verse.  It's easy to speed by it, but there's such treasure to be gained by contemplating what Paul means here.  Paul describes HOW we ought to love one another.  Thorough loving one another requires knowledge, empathy, both joy, and sorrow, and support through the highs and lows of life.  To truly and sincerely rejoice and weep with our friends, we need a breadth and depth of love.  We love one another throughout the span of life.  We love one another by becoming intimately acquainted with joys and griefs.  It requires moving towards another and it requires dying to self.

REJOICE WITH THOSE WHO REJOICE

Weeping with those who weep can seem burdensome, wearying and not really a lot of fun.  It's kind of a no brainer why we would need to be exhorted to weep with those who weep.  But why would Paul need to direct us to rejoice with those who rejoice?  Rejoicing IS fun!  Aren't we all looking towards that day when sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads (Isaiah 35: 10)? 

1) ENVY
But lurking in all of our hearts is a desire for our own glory/happiness, and when others receive blessings from the Lord, we can feel that our own glory/happiness is being threatened.  Envy takes hold.  Envy can touch everything we do, as we in see in Ecclesiastes 4:4: Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work comes from a man's envy of his neighbour. This also is vanity and a striving after the wind.

My own heart's response is QUICK to envy.  A friend approaches.  A smile on her face.  She wants to share good news with a friend, and I am the blessed one she wants to tell.  She eagerly opens up.  Praise God, prayers have been answered.  Yet, whether it's about her surprise fabulous vacation plans or her recent success in business or her new car, my heart leaps to comparison.  Why did God bless her and answer her prayers but not mine?  Why does her life always seem better than mine?  My eyes are on myself, and what I think I lack.  My eyes are on what I wish I had, what I want to have.  But in every conversation, I need to learn to take my eyes OFF myself and LOOK at my friend, and LOVE my friend.  The appropriate response of love in this instance is to REJOICE.   

There is a season for everything, but when your friend is getting married, or having a baby, or buying a house, or getting an awesome promotion, it is the season for you to rejoice with your friend.  It is not time for you to make it about yourself.  These gifts that God is bestowing on your friend may indeed be triggering and disorienting to you.  Run to the Lord with your questions, and continue to learn from Him, the one who came to serve and not to be served.  Ultimately, these moments, when envy surges, are opportunities to die to self.  What makes a life valuable is not things, or babies, or marriages, or successes.  What makes a life valuable is looking like Christ.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also the interests of others. ~Philippians 2:3-4 
As we look to Christ, the author and pefector of our faith (Heb 12:2), we set aside our hopes and dreams for ourselves, and learn to love others the way Christ loved us.  

This is not to minimize the pain many of us may feel, whether we are barren, single, sick, poor, unemployed, etc.  You might have many questions for God.  Cast your cares on the Lord because He cares for you (1 Pet 5:7).  The blessings that God bestows on others have nothing to do with you, and the precious purposes God has for you.  Cling to God, go and learn about why God allows suffering, and put aside your desires so that you can rejoice with your friends.
A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. ~Proverbs 14:30
2) CRISIS OF FAITH
Sometimes, my failure to rejoice with a friend is not exactly a direct "she got that blessing but I wish I got her blessing".  I'm not specifically wanting her vacation, or her house, or her wedding, or her car, etc.  Sometimes things are a little more complicated.  Sometimes, the weight of my life feels so heavy, and seeing that the weight of other people's lives is so seemingly light, I can feel like I'm having a crisis of faith.  Serious questions can begin to flood my mind.  Is God good? Is God against me? Has God abandoned me?  Why is life going so well for someone else and not for me?  Why are there more trials around every corner for me, but there are more blessings around every corner for them?  This is still envy.  Envy of someone else's blessedness, or peaceful and happy life.  But it's also mingled with hurt and a struggle to trust God's purposes in my life.  

I urge you, dear one, flee to Christ.  
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ~Matthew 11: 28-30
I am learning that I need to cultivate a heart for my friends that is FOR them.  I should be eager to see God's blessings on their lives.  But this is impossible, in my weariness and frailty and selfishness, unless I am found in Christ.  My strength to love, my strength to even exist comes from Christ alone. My burdens are many.  His burden is light.  I also need to keep near my heart all the many spiritual blessings God has granted me (see Ephesians 1:3-14; Psalm 103).  As my heart is full of the redemption I have through Christ's blood, my view of life is re-oriented.  I am reminded that God's ways are far above my ways, and I am able to trust God in my own trials.  And I am able to lovingly rejoice in the blessings bestowed on my friend.  

BLESS AND DO NOT CURSE

My husband saw the title of these blog entries: 2 Friendship Killers, and was immediately taken aback.  He asked if I was suggesting that failure to weep or rejoice with friends would definitely result in the death of a friendship.  I can understand his concern! However, the point in considering two friendship killers was mainly to evaluate the deadliness of our own tendency towards selfishness and sin.  It's a warning to myself that if I give myself over to considering myself more important than others, there will be a cost.  Primarily, there will be a cost on my soul, in regard to my relationship with God, and secondarily, there will be a cost in my relationships horizontally.  

In fact, Paul's exhortation immediately preceding "Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep" is "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them."  So as Christians, I hope we are quick to forgive friends who have hurt and perhaps even persecuted us.  Sincere Christian friends ought to extend much grace and forgiveness!  In this post, I merely wanted to emphasize the danger my own sin and your own sin can present in the pursuit of genuine friendship.  


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