At a time when Michael W. Smith’s “Friends Are Friends Forever” was the theme song at many high school graduation ceremonies, I attended a concert by the late Rich Mullins. I remember him saying that he hated the song because friendships are often just for a season and not forever. He thought the song sappy and unrealistic. If only Rich were still with us.
We live in time where, particularly among teens and twenty-somethings, friendship often comes close to idolatry. I recently read a Facebook post lauding a friend as “one who completes me.” From all that I read in the Scriptures, it is only God who can complete us, and make us who we were meant to be.
Idolatry, by biblical definition, is anything we worship or value above the Lord. And I have seen many, am seeing many, who embrace the idolatry of friendship. Their identity and their self-worth are found in their friendships. The priorities and opinions of friends are the most important to them. Pleasing their friends is a greater priority than pleasing God.
During my years in ministry, I have watched students who are seeking the Lord be sidetracked by their devotion to friends. They may continue to talk the talk, but it is clear where their priorities lie. They withdraw from other relationships and refuse to make any effort to develop new ones. Their worlds revolve around a very small group of people, perhaps just one or two. Like players at a poker table, they are “all in.”
But as in poker, going “all in” with certain friendships carries risks. You may lose in a very big way and the odds are you will.
What Rich Mullins realized and what we need to understand is friendships never remain the same over time. Life happens. Marriage. Kids. Careers. Changes in location. And friendships will have to adapt or die. Sometimes, the changes are just too dramatic for them to last. I can hear the screams coming, “No, never! Not our friendship!” Those are the cries of idolaters. When you are determined that nothing come between you and your friend(s), not marriage, not your children, not even God, you, my friend, are caught in the grip of idolatry.
And idolatry always comes at a steep price. It never tolerates competition, so when life does happen or when a friend recognizes there is too much devotion to the other friend and not enough to God, friendships end bitterly. What was meant to be a wonderful gift is crushed by holding onto it too tightly. And one or both friends are left with the realization of time and energy misplaced and wasted.
Today, realize friendships are a wonderful gift from the Lord, but they are never, ever to replace Him as your source of meaning and purpose in life. When they do, they have become idols and both your friendship and your relationship with God are at risk.
© Jim Musser 2014
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