Episode 11: Godly Friendships

In a world where we're more connected than ever through social media, texting, and technology, why do so many people still feel lonely?

In this episode of Encouraged by the Word, April and Becca discuss God's design for friendship and why meaningful, godly relationships are so important to our spiritual, emotional, and even physical well-being. Together, they explore what Scripture teaches about friendship, the characteristics of a godly friend, and why building deep relationships can be challenging in adulthood.

Join us as we discuss loyalty, honesty, accountability, encouragement, and the importance of building friendships on a foundation of faith. Whether you're looking for stronger friendships, navigating loneliness, or seeking biblical wisdom for your relationships, this conversation will encourage and equip you.

In this episode:

•  Why God never intended for us to do life alone 
•  The loneliness epidemic in today's digital world 
•  Characteristics of a godly friend 
•  How friendships shape our spiritual growth 
•  Why making friends as an adult can be difficult 
•  Practical ways to build healthy, God-centered relationships 

If this episode encouraged you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who could use some encouragement today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're back in April. That's friends on a mission to encourage women through every walk of life. We know that life speaks loud, but God's word speaks louder.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

So if you're looking for a place to know more about love, a place for you. Join us. Let's go. Encouraged by the word. Welcome back to Encouraged by the Word. We're your host, I'm April. And I'm Becca. And we're so excited you're with us today. This is episode number 11, and we're going to be talking about friendships. I honestly think this is one of the most needed conversations right now because even though people are connected through all of the things technology has allowed us to connect with, there are still so many people who feel lonely, isolated, disconnected emotionally and spiritually, right? We have social media, we have our cell phones that allow us to text, FaceTime, we have all of these amazing apps to keep us connected, group chats, DMs, Snapchat, Instagram. And we can reach people at an instant. Yeah you know, anytime. And despite all of those connections, loneliness is still rising in this world.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

That's true. And while we were doing research for this episode, uh we came across some pretty shocking um statistics that I want to read to you. One in two adults report measurable loneliness. The US Surgeon General calls loneliness an epidemic. Can you believe that? That's crazy. In this world today, it's an epidemic. Chronic loneliness equals health risks compared to comparable to get this smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Oh my gosh. Isn't that wild? Ohcial isolation increases premature death risk by 26%. Think about COVID and the isolation that happened then and the older people stuck in nursing homes that died earlier than they should have. Yeah. Isolation is linked to anxiety, depression, heart disease, and stroke. And this is so interesting because, like you said, we're living in a generation where communication is constant. Right. You know, constant.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So how do we feel lonely with all of that stuff? I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Um, I'm gonna give you some technology stats. Uh, in the late 90s, early 2000s is when instant messenger started. Y'all remember that? Everybody would rush at home and uh abandon the actual interaction so that they could go get online. Yeah. Uh 04 to 06, Facebook and social media, that changed the friendship culture big time. 07 to 2010, smartphones, they made communication constant. Now you expect people to reply just like that. There's never any time where we just get to be ourselves and not have communication. Today, friendships are maintained mainly through like micro interactions. So memes, streaks, DMs, reactions, things like that, where it's just that micro interaction. And none of these things are necessarily bad. I mean, they they have their place, right? But I think we mistake that constant contact for a genuine connection. Right. You can know what somebody posted today. Yeah, you can know everything about their life from their post. Right. But do we actually know how they're doing spiritually? Do we actually know how they're doing emotionally or mentally? You know, how many times have we like cleared off the wall of all the junk and told our kids to stand there so we could have the perfect picture? It's not really a true depiction of how we are.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah. And I feel like that might be a reason why so many people feel unseen right now. Yeah. You know, people can be surrounded by online interaction and still feel deeply alone. That's true. Um, I feel like the word kind of addressed this long before modern psychology did because God never intended for us to do life alone, right? Yes. Yeah, I don't think he designed us to be alone. He didn't. Genesis 2 and 18 says, it is not good that men should be alone. So he told us right off the bat, yeah, it's just not good. You guys need people, you need community, you need friendships. It's important. Yeah. You know, it matters. What's important about that verse is that before sin even entered the world, before there was brokenness, before there was pain, before there was separation from God, the very first thing that God said was not good was isolation. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So I feel like that's kind of a big thing. God designed us for relationship, for community, for support, for connection. And we have to honor that. You know, if he says, hey, it's not good for you to be alone. We cannot go through this life alone. Um, also, Ecclesiastes 4, it says, Two are better than one, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. I love that verse because we know this life is not perfect. We are going to have hard times. And it reminds us that friendships are not just um surface level things. You know, it's something deeper. It's emotional, it's practical. We all are going to go through difficult seasons. We face discouragement, we face grief, we face stressful times, disappointments, and spiritual battles. And we can't go through those things alone in a healthy way. God never attended for us to carry those burdens alone. That's why we need people, we need relationships, we need good godly friendships, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

And we can look to our perfect example in this. Even Jesus had close friendships. Uh, people overlook that sometimes. You know, he had the disciples, but he also had people he was especially close to Lazarus, Martha, Mary, John. And if he valued those friendships in that community, then I think we should too. Absolutely. You know, uh clearly friendship matters to him, and it mattered deeply. And um, I think healthy friendships are one of the ways that God strengthens us, right? Jesus is not here on the earth anymore. He sent people, he has this body of Christ, and that's what he uses. So he sends people to encourage us, to help us, to sustain us. But not every friendship is healthy. You know, I I usually tell people you can have friends that are out here on this outer ring, yeah, and then you've got your inner circle. And the inner circle are those healthy friends that are help shaping, helping us um shape and grow spiritually. Yeah. Um, they're the ones that we can be vulnerable with and we can open up to, and we know that they're gonna point us to God. So let's talk about some characteristics of a godly friend. Let's talk about who would be the ones that would be in that inner circle. Okay. So one of the biggest characteristics of a godly friend is loyalty. You know, proverbs says that a friend loveth at all times. So sometimes is that just when they're doing what you want them to do? Is that just when they're making you happy? No, a real friend is dependable. Right. They stay, they stay during the difficult seasons, they stay when things aren't always easy. Um, and honesty, loyalty is rare today because our culture has become so disposable. Right. You know, we get offended or we walk away or we make a relationship out of convenience instead of a covenant relationship. Our inner circle friends should be covenant friends. And godly friendship is consistent, it doesn't waver. Uh, I like to think about Ruth and Naomi. I love that story. It's one of my favorite ones in the Bible because Ruth stayed when it would have been so much easier to leave, you know, and it could have been justified. People would have understood why she did. Right. But she stayed, she stayed through the grief, yeah, she stayed through the uncertainty, she stayed through the transition. It was a whole new place, a whole new way of doing things, and she stayed, and that is so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, one of the things with loyalty, I think uh we don't realize, but everybody wants a loyal friendship. And we have to realize that loyalty also requires commitment. Sometimes friendships mean showing up even when life is busy, you know? Yeah, it means penciling your friend in. It means being intentional about setting a coffee date. Sometimes it means checking on people, making time for others, standing by them during a hard season. You know, you know your friend's going through a tough time. Okay, what can I do to help be there for them? And one of the things that I think is really, really sad, these connections are very few because people don't really feel like that there's others that they can count on during those times, you know? That's really true. That's sad. Yeah. Another uh characteristic I think of a good godly friendship would be honesty. And this can be hard because if it's your friend, you don't want to hurt your friend's feelings, right? But you know, not anything that's harsh or nothing, not being judgmental or anything, but simple, honest accountability. Yep. Proverbs 27 and 17 says, iron sharpens iron. Real friendships sharpen us, and sharpening requires friction sometimes. So when your friend tells you something, it's not that it might not feel good, but you just know that it is for your good. A real friend loves you enough to tell you the truth. That is so good. Doesn't always feel good, but you know that they love you, and so they're going to correct you in a loving, godly way.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

You know, a godly friend doesn't just support you blindly. I don't want a friend that just says yes all the time or you know, that just goes with everything I say. I want them to hold me accountable. I want them to ask me questions. I want them to say, does this go with you know the word? Does this line up with the word? And mature friendships can handle the truth. You know, I have to know that not every correction is rejection. Right. She's not rejecting me if she tells me, hey, the way you talk to that person was not very kind. And I know your heart, and I know that that's not really how you would do things. You know, um, she genuinely wants to see me healthy, she genuinely wants to see me grow spiritually, so she's gonna correct me when I'm when I'm not doing things. And we need people in our lives who can lovingly tell us these things. They can tell us when we're wrong, they can tell us when we're drifting spiritually, they can tell us when we're making unhealthy decisions and knock the cupcake out of my hand. We've been there, we've done in the break room before, and it does not feel good.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

I'm like, why would she throw away my cupcake? I really wanted that, you know, right before I told her I wanted to lose 10 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Exactly, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

And only thing she was trying to do was to make me better, and that's what healthy friendships do. The goal should be making this person, helping make this person better. It shouldn't pull us away from God, but it should pull us to him and um maybe give us insight on how we can be better followers than him. That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Revealing his characteristics, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pointing us towards him, which brings us to the next point, which the one is I think is the most important, and that's building a friendship on the right foundation. So your closest friendships, that inner circle, it should be it should be rooted in shared principles, shared values, um, shared pursuit of God. You know, um, when I first met April and I laid her back in the dental chair, you have to go watch episode one to know what I'm talking about. I knew instantly this girl is talking the faith talk. This girl, we are aligned and we're gonna be friends for life. Yeah, you know that we are here. We are all these years later. And that doesn't mean that all of our conversations are like super spiritual. We're not carrying a Bible around. We have all kinds of conversations, but we always point each other back to God. You know, if I'm about to go off on somebody, which I mean I don't do, but you know, we point each other back to God and we help each other get back on track. We let each other vent and then we get back on track and get close to God.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, the strongest friendships are built on more than entertainment or convenience, you know, and I think the people that are closest to us will influence us. So we need to take inventory, you know. Our conversations influence us, our priorities will influence our life, our environment. So it really does matter who we surround ourselves with. And sometimes I think it is good to take inventory. Say, what does my my inner circle look like? What does this my bigger circle, what does that look like? Um, and it will it will, I guess, put us in a mindset of, oh, I need to be more intentional about maybe making some new friends. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

You know, yeah, there may be people that you have to move to the outer circle because they're constantly pulling you down.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Um, John Maxwell says, Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. You know, Jesus, people always say, Well, Jesus hung around with sinners all the time. He sure did, but you know what? He brought them up. Yeah, they didn't leave the same, he always brought change and brought them up.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Right. Another characteristic is encouragement. We all need encouragement. First Thessalonians says, encourage one another, encourage one another and build one another up. And I think of Jonathan encouraging David. He strengthened him in the Lord. And I'm telling you, I need daily encouragement. I have to encourage myself. But there are times when I'm so down or feeling defeated, and I need the encouragement of a friend to tell me, you got this or this is good. God's fighting this battle for you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah. And I love that example of Jonathan and David because we need somebody who reminds us of who we are. Who are we in Christ? Who is God to us? And they'll those godly friends they'll speak life to you, they'll celebrate you, they'll pray for you, they'll support you. They remind you of God's promises. And honestly, encouragement is spiritual, you know. Sometimes it's just a simple text message. Right. Sometimes it's a prayer, sometimes it's pulling up to their house, whether they want you to be there or not, opening the blinds, telling them, girl, get dressed, get your makeup on, get up, you know, quit wallering and self-pity. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

We have to hear those hard things. And we have to know that our friends only telling us that because they love us. That's right. Um, Becca, let's talk about this. This is, I think, a difficult thing for adults. Why is making friends as an adult so hard? Okay, you might not have that big group of friends from childhood. Right. Why in the world is it so hard and so awkward as friends? You know, as children, we don't think about becoming someone's friends. We see another friend on the playground, we instantly want to play with her. Right. We make these connections in class and we go to youth groups and we go to college and we just make friends with everybody because life is so fun. Yeah. And then you become an adult and life is busy. You're married, you have children, you're working all of the time, you're involved with church. So many things are going on, and I need to make a friend, but I'm so I'm so lost, I don't know what to do. Do I even have time to make a friend? You know? Or do I want to? You know, do we trust?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Well, I think that's a good point because I think as we become older, we become more guarded because of life experience. Right. You know, I've experienced disappointment, I've experienced betrayal, I've experienced church hurt, rejection, broken friendships. Yeah. And after enough of that, vulnerability can start feeling risky. Yeah. You know, and um then you have the aspect of the social media like we talked about, it can create that illusion of connection. Oh, I'm good, I've got friends, but we don't actually have that depth. And sometimes I think we use that as a crutch. Right. You can have hundreds of followers, but you don't have that true depth because it's too risky to jump out there and put yourself out there.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Right. Those followers are not gonna show up at your house and open up your blinds for you, you know. Yeah. And you know, I think it can just make you feel so weird and awkward as an adult. Like having to go into a Bible study group and put yourself out there like that. You've got to initiate plans, you've got to text first, maybe you've got to exchange phone numbers, text, and then trying to already like jump into already established friend groups. That can feel so awkward. We might feel rejected. Yes, yeah, all those things. And it requires intentionality, you know, just not assuming that it's gonna just work, but really saying, you know what, I'm gonna put myself out there, I'm gonna take the risk, and I'm gonna try to develop a meaning relationship or friendship over time with someone, you know? That's good, being consistent and just trusting that it's all going to be okay. So let's end with some practical ways to actually build healthy friendships, okay? The first thing is we've got to get out, we've got to go where healthy people go. That's right. We're gonna start with church, small groups, right? Join a serve team, join a Bible study group, prayer group. Healthy friendships rarely grow in isolation. So that's a good idea. You know, you might not want to get up, put on some workout clothes, and head to the coffee shop, but you're gonna have to. You can't be isolated and want to build healthy friendships.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, that's true. Sometimes we're praying for godly friendships, but we're avoiding the opportunities that God is sending those people. You know, He's sending, He's like, Okay, I'm answering your prayer, I'm sending people, and we're avoiding it and staying home. We have to be willing to step out, we have to be intentional, like April said, and we have to build those relationships. And here's another thing be that friend that you're praying for. If you want loyalty, consistency, encouragement, honesty, support, sow those seeds, offer those things.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah. And I think it's like another biblical principle. If we sow those seeds, like you just said, of being a loyal friend, putting yourself out there, being loyal, um, honest, showing up when someone needs them, we're gonna get that back, right? Yeah. So um it's important to give friendships time. That's true. You know, deep trust usually is an instant, right? Strong friendships are built through consistency, shared experiences, faithfulness, and time. So if it doesn't happen right away or on your timeline, don't just give up on it. Give it some time and allow God to do a new thing through the both of you.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah. You know, don't be afraid to ask God to send people. You know, don't be afraid. He cares about all the little things in our lives. I mean, throughout scripture, we see powerful friendships. David and Jonathan that we talked about, Ruth and Naomi that we talked about, how about Paul and Timothy? Yeah, God uses those relationships to strengthen us, to encourage us, to help carry us through different seasons of life. So don't be afraid to ask, but then just remember when you ask him, be ready to step out there and be ready to get into those opportunities that he's sending.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, we hope this conversation really encourages you today to either step out and make some new friends, to evaluate your friend group, or to look deep at your heart and yourself and say, Am I being the friend that I would want someone to be the friend to me?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, and just remember if you've been feeling lonely, disconnected, we want you to know that God created you for meaningful relationship and community. You're not excluded. This is for you, this is for all of us, and He wants you to be part of those meaningful relationships.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, godly friendships are a lot more than social connections, you know. You want someone that's gonna pull up to your house, knock on your door, and open those blinds. And that's hard to do with 5,000 Facebook friends. That's right. Uh, but they are spiritual relationships that are there helping carry us through healing, through our purpose in life, through growth, and uh through faithfulness as we walk out this life in God.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

That's right. So, in a world full of followers, likes, surface level connection, God still calls us to deep, authentic, life-giving relationships. So let's pray, okay? Lord, I thank you so much for this amazing group of ladies that have tuned in today. Father, we just thank you that you're sending the right people to be in that inner circle that can encourage us, that can help carry us through the hard times, that can always point us back to you. And Father, we just thank you for opportunities. We thank you for showing us where to go, what to do, how to do it. And we just praise you in advance for turning our life around, Lord, and for helping us to grow in community and in purpose. And we praise you for it in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Jesus' name. Awesome, awesome. Well, to all of our followers out there, thank you all so much for joining us today. We're so grateful for you. We love you, and we hope that you all are in continually encouraged by the word. Bye. Bye.