What’s the difference from friending and befriending?
Like many others in my peer group, I’ve struggled with the way that the facebook age has changed the way our culture views relationships and interacts. Instead of quality relationships that we are making efforts and time to develop, we’re overwhelmed with surface contact with dozens of people in a day and often never really connecting with anyone. With hundreds of facebook friends and instant communication with almost anyone, why are we all so lonely?
This year, I set out on a quest to read as much as I can about creating meaningful relationships in a social media world. In my mid 30s, I had imagined I’d have cracked that invisible friendship code, but more often than not I fail to connect and I’m not really sure why.
As a busy wife and mother, it can be so much easier to hit a quick like ” than to invest in actually understanding and knowing someone. The internet hasn’t all been bad for relationships. I have found some of my closest friends online. But like everyone else, I’ve been burned, disappointed, and betrayed. It’s hard to be vulnerable and it’s easier to be surface. Not many people seem interested in putting in the effort to go beyond friending to actually befriending. So my big question has been how do we do friendships now?
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As soon as I saw this book, I knew it was the perfect way to begin my reading quest into the subject of meaningful friendships. In his book Befriend, Scott Sauls takes up the question of authentic relationships and peels back the layers to the core. We can’t really befriend or value anyone else until we learn our own value before God. The only way to know our worth is when we come to truly know it in the love of God who sent His Son to die for us.
Once we understand our worth, Saul encourages “Start loving as you have been loved.” (Befriend) And that includes reaching out beyond our comfort zone.
In fact, the whole book centers on love. Loving ourselves as Children of God, and loving all mankind as God’s children–our brothers and sisters.
Sauls gives practical, in-depth takes on how to go beyond the surface and go deep not just with those who are like us, but with the difficult or unlovable ones. He talks about not just hearing words but hearing the heart. Not just seeing the mess, but the soul behind it.
“Live a Love Shaped life, into which Love himself invites us. With Love, we can heal the world.” (Befriend)
I was touched and encouraged by this book and inspired again that there is no greater tool in the hand of God’s child than the gift of love, in the form of offering our hand in friendship to those that are in our path right now.
If you are curious about the other books about friendship that I had in my friendship book stack, check out this post I did on KindredGrace.com. I’ll be reviewing all of these on my blog in more depth in the future!
