Last time, we talked about uprooting heart attitudes that destroy our friendships, and seeking mutual Christian upbuilding with other women. I suggested at that time that if we haven’t got that sorted out, we’re not necessarily in a good place to evaluate whether male-female friendships are a wise prospect.
I believe that healthy friendship should indeed be irrespective of gender: we have to start with the awareness that people are people. Both men and women are eternal souls, precious to Christ. How we treat people when it comes to gender differences and sexual purity is predicated on that awareness, first and foremost.
I also mentioned that I don’t think close male-female friendships should be held up as a norm, or as something to be approached in an unguarded way. I think it’s difficult to find good, trustworthy friends of compatible thinking anytime throughout life. It’s the nature of this broken world.
And finally, I said that male-female friendships can happen. In fact, two of my best friends are guys, so I’m going to take this opportunity to make them blush a little. What are the traits of those men who made my real-life “friends list”? Why are they rare? Here are some considerations.
Strong Family Grounding
First, they have sisters. And they have healthy, loving relationships with their sisters. That doesn’t mean they never fight or get exasperated with each other. It means they have a strong positive point of reference in their lives for how to fulfill the command of 1 Timothy 5:2, “[Treat] the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.” Also, they’re not mother-dependents. They neither need nor want me to nurture them, allowing me to be an independent human being without having to guard my autonomy.
Mature Existing Relationships
Secondly, they are older men with extremely healthy, long-term marriages. They’ve had a long time in which they’ve created solid agreement with their wives on how to handle outside relationships. They’ve had time to establish good marital communication, both the verbal and the non-verbal nuances of understanding that only time really fortifies.
Likewise, I’m at the fifteen-year mark in my marriage. With that milestone this past year, I often find myself sitting back in awe of the huge investment I’ve made in building this life with Dave. Building a home, building a place in our community, building our family. The idea of even accidentally tearing apart this amazing, beautiful thing that we’ve worked on so hard, is just reprehensible.
Serving the Lord
Thirdly, my guy friends are active in lay ministry—teaching Bible study, assisting in preaching, assisting in interpersonal ministry. That doesn’t mean they’re somehow holier than the average. It means they’re constantly required to wrestle with God’s Word in order to share it with integrity. They are not new or even middling Christians; they’re extremely mature in the Lord as only long time can produce. Likewise, Dave and I have community responsibilities in handling God’s Word that push us to live with integrity.
Here I want to pointedly reject the common healthy-relationship jargon of “being actively involved in church,” because active involvement is no indicator. It can mean playing a role. It can mean burnout. It can mean isolation in the middle of a crowd. It can mean all “doing religion,” and no being in Christ. And all those “doing” things create vulnerability to sin, rather than helping to immunize against it. Instead, I’m talking about joyful involvement in a faith community and in personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
A Focus Other Than Each Other
Fourthly, we are friends around an ongoing shared interest. Most people meet over some kind of common interest, but in healthy friendships, gratifying relationship is a side effect, not the main goal. In other words, nobody’s in it to get their felt needs met. My guy friends are writers, and the conversation majors on either that or general spiritual edification. Sometimes that can involve sharing life stories, and we do take an active interest in each other’s lives. One of the guys refers to it as “cheering each other on.” There’s a mutual desire to run the race set before us.
And lastly, these are people with more than an abstract interest in seeing my marriage succeed. It encourages them to see me and Dave doing well together. It encourages them to see that I have strong boundaries and will support and affirm their strong boundaries as well. Our primary shared interest is to fight and win the battles of personal holiness—to glorify God in our lives. That’s a road less traveled in world and church alike, and one that makes all the difference.
It’s the month of sweethearts, and the month of lonelyhearts. I encourage you to set your eyes on the best friend of anyone—Jesus Christ, who loved us while we were still sinners, and died so that we might live to God. We belong to God, not to others for their use outside of God’s will; and our friends belong to God, not to us. Life is on loan. The people who come our way are an extra gift.
Like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior; because it is written, You shall be holy, because I am holy. —Peter 1:15-16
Marriage and Friendship, Part 1
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