Recently I spoke at a ministers’ conference, and following one of the sessions, one pastor confessed, “You know, I’ve never had a best friend. I’ve been so busy working for the Lord that I’ve never found the time.”
You could hear the lonely longing in his voice. I felt it inside, because ten years ago I’d felt the same way. I was considered a successful youth leader and teacher, I was trying to live the Christian life as best I understood it, and yet I felt lonely. Things weren’t rotten; I wasn’t in a state of desperation. But something inside me said, There’s got to be more to the Christian life than this. I feel alone.
I didn’t know what I was looking for. I certainly didn’t think I was looking for a relationship of accountability. But such a friendship found me.
Surprised by friendship
I was working with Young Life at the time and met a guy named Rob, a young, rising business executive from the right side of the tracks. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He was single; I was married. We didn’t have a lot in common, but he began to drop by once in a while. At first I thought he was trying to recruit me for something, but gradually I realized he was coming by simply because he wanted to be with me. I’d done the same for many young people I’d ministered to, but it had never occurred to me that people would do that for me.
I discovered Rob’s concept of life was similar to mine, focused on friendship with God and being himself with others. We started jogging together and playing racquetball together. I began to look at him as a friend, and after a while I started relying on him as a sounding board.
Eventually we began to talk about our spiritual journeys, some of our struggles, the dreams we had. We discovered that both of us were lonely. It was tough to let on to another guy, “You know, I’m lonely.” But as I thought back, I realized, I haven’t had a best friend since junior high school.
The time problem
Rob and I enjoyed getting together, but our schedules were so crazy we could go for weeks and never talk. Then one fall afternoon while walking around a lake, we decided we would try something: once a week we would get together just to talk about “our highest ideals and our deepest needs.” And we would pray for each other as often as possible, preferably daily.
At the time it seemed funny that we had to be so intentional about developing a friendship, but we both saw that with the pace of life, if it weren’t on the calendar, it wouldn’t happen.
We established some guidelines that we thought would help:
We would never share more than we felt comfortable talking about.
We would not offer advice or criticism unless asked.
We weren’t each other’s therapists but rather friends who would help each other in the spiritual life. We wouldn’t try to change the other person but would work together on changing ourselves.
We’d try meeting for a year and then consider whether to continue. But even if we stopped the weekly meetings, we’d still be friends.
The guidelines took away any fear of meeting with Rob. I knew I wasn’t going to come out feeling beaten up.
The big three
Only with a special kind of friend can you talk about the three issues with which we all struggle: money, sex, and power. We’re always facing opportunities but also dangers with these. Most Christian leaders I’ve encountered have no one, including their spouses, with whom they can talk candidly about these kinds of struggles. That fall afternoon, Rob and I agreed we would try to talk honestly about these areas.
We had no more said this than I couldn’t help but notice some of the scantily clad women joggers bobbing by. I thought, Well, this is a test of our relationship, and I gulped and said, “You know, I’m having trouble focusing, because my mind is straying to those bodies running by.” I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to confess something like that.
Rob admitted his own tendency to see a beautiful woman as a sexual object. “How can you acknowledge the beauty of a woman,” he asked, “without that second thought of mentally trying to undress her?”
As we talked, we realized the key was being able to disconnect the moment of recognizing beauty from the thoughts that led to lust. We admitted our tendency was to wrestle the thoughts, to try to win by willpower, rather than acknowledging, I’m helpless to overcome my own tendency to want to lust after a woman. Admitting that, ironically enough, released us from it. The insights we discussed gave me a strategy for dealing with the problem.
We began meeting for lunch each week, usually for an hour and a half. Both of us travel at times, and I found it helpful to know that when I came back from a trip, he might ask, “How’s it going with your ability to disconnect?” Knowing I was going to have a chance to talk about it helped me walk past that bookstore and movie theater, and free my mind from thoughts about that enchantress I happened to see.
I discovered this “spiritual discipline” didn’t have to be grim, hard work. Our time together was not just a spiritual review but also a relaxing time of recreation. Rob and I would sometimes skip the lunch and play squash or racquetball. I am not the kind of person who tends to play. I’m pretty intense and goal oriented, and I had to learn it was okay not to have every week be an intense session. After all, we weren’t looking for therapy or Bible study but a friendship that would help us both minister more effectively.
Money
One day we got together for lunch, and after we ordered, Rob said, “How’s it going?”
I said, “I’ve gotten five overdraft notices from my bank, and I am ticked off. I mailed a check to the bank in time to cover those five checks, and the bank messed up.”
Rob listened to me complain for a while, and then he said, “It’s a pretty powerless feeling, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. The bank could care less about the fact they messed me up, and every one of those overdrawn checks is costing me $15! They were only for diddly amounts-$3, $12, $8-but they’re costing me twice as much.”
Only after I got the anger out did I realize, You know, what I really feel powerless about is the fact that I’m spending more money than I’m making. I’ve cut things too close. My priorities are out of whack.
I told Rob about it, and we started to talk about budgeting. After the lunch, we both went home and talked to our spouses (Rob was now married) about working out a household budget and sharing it with the other person. Both spouses gave their permission.
The next week I took my budget and laid it in front of Rob. His job was to say, “How does your budget reflect your priorities?” It was for me to answer my own questions.
Since then we’ve used each other as a third-party perspective on major purchases. We both desire a simpler lifestyle, but that’s hard to reach by yourself. So before Kathy and I buy something major, I’ll often tell Rob about it and ask, “As I talk about this, what kind of feelings are you picking up? Is this purchase helping me become the person I want to become?”
Not that this is a heavy process. Recently Kathy and I were ready to sign a purchase agreement for a new home, and I asked Rob’s advice. He brought up some good questions that helped me write a better purchase agreement. For example, he said, “Snow blowers and lawn mowers are high-ticket items. Do they have ones they’d be willing to include with the house?” The couple was retiring to the South and wouldn’t need either, so I was able to add those to the contract and save some money. I never would have if Rob hadn’t given me the idea.
Power
At first, the toughest of the three areas to talk about was sex. But now I struggle most to talk about power. It’s so subtle. It’s hard to see, let alone admit, our deepest needs for it.
For a while, I couldn’t figure out a conflict I seemed to be having with another man on staff at the church. I was not trying to be competitive, but I felt a sense of competition between us. I didn’t know what I was doing to create the negative response.
I told Rob about the situation, and he asked, “What does it feel like to have two young bulls buttin’ heads? Each has strong opinions; each feels the other person doesn’t understand him.” I was able to express my feelings: misunderstood, discounted, taken advantage of. And from there I could admit some of my fears. One fear was of conflict itself. I don’t like disunity, I don’t like fighting, and I tend to avoid it at all costs. I also feared losing whatever power I did have.
As I talked with Rob about it, somehow the discussions helped lower my fears. I began to see how I had been insensitive to my fellow staff member’s needs.
The next week I walked into this staff member’s office. He didn’t invite me to sit down but asked, “What do you want?”
I closed the door and said, “I need to . . . I need to apologize to you.”
His eyes opened wide. “What for?”
I told him the things I realized I had been doing wrong in the relationship, things that talking with Rob had helped me to see.
That conversation didn’t ease completely the tension in the relationship, and we never became best friends. But it helped to disarm our competition for power. It stopped the under-the-table hostility that was moving us further apart.
Fourth priority
Rob and I are now in our ninth year together. The longevity of our relationship is one of its strengths, because each of us now has a historical view of the other person’s life. We’re able to say, “I remember how you dealt with this before, and you have really grown.”
We’re also less able to con each other. Most of us, when we have a problem, cast ourselves in the best light and blame circumstances or other people. But Rob and I know each other well enough now to keep each other honest.
Sometimes people who know about our friendship wonder whether it competes with our marriages. Do our spouses resent the intimacy we have developed? No, because Rob and I have been clear that our relationship is fourth priority-after God, our wives, and our vocations. One way the difference shows is that neither Rob nor I talk about some of the most intimate details of our marriages. But talking to Rob actually enhances my marriage. When I consider a minor struggle with Rob, I then find it easier to share a major struggle with Kathy. Finding openness at the one level gives me the courage to try it at another. In addition, many people have no one to turn to when troubles with their spouses blow in. When conflicts have arisen between Kathy and me, I’ve been able to sort some of them with Rob so that I could go back and work through them with Kathy.
My relationship of accountability with Rob has been a key in keeping me alive and growing through the transitions and conflicts that come with ministry.
-Gary W. Downing, executive minister
Colonial Church of Edina
Edina, Minnesota
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Social ethics must never be substituted for personal ethics. Crusading can easily become a dodge for facing up to one’s lack of personal morality. By the same token, even if I am a model of personal righteousness, that does not excuse my participation in social evil. The man who is faithful to his wife while he exercises bigotry toward his neighbor is no better than the adulterer who crusades for social justice. What God requires is justice both personal and social.
-R. C. Sproul
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When does proper desire become coveting? I think we can put the answer down simply: desire becomes sin when it fails to include the love of God or men. Further, I think there are two practical tests as to when we are coveting against God or men: first, I am to love God enough to be contented; second, I am to love men enough not to envy.
-Francis Schaeffer
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