By Kendra Kammer
When I was nine years old I moved to a new elementary school. At my big new school, recess was particularly intimidating. Hundreds (dare I say thousands? It felt like thousands) of kids spread across the school grounds. Girls braided each other’s hair, boys played football, kids paired off and walked with heads bent close together, sharing secrets. Where did I fit in?
A couple of days after school started I spied a group of kids playing four-square. It looked like fun - certainly not as intimidating as football! - so I got in line. I stood in line for (as I remember it) approximately 14 hours, when finally it was my turn. I stepped into the box, and some fifth grade tough guy, with freckles on his nose and a sneer on his face sliced that ball like lightning into my square. I didn’t even have time to react. “You’re out!” He shouted, already sizing up the next competitor as I slinked back into line.
Over the next week, as I spent what felt like hours in the four-square line, I noticed that there was one other girl lined up to play. Just like me, she always lost immediately, and just like me, she kept coming back every day to try again. Her name was Sarah.
Sarah and I bonded as we rolled our eyes at the boys and cheered one another on. When it became apparent that waiting in line for the entirety of recess wasn’t our best use of time, we decided to start our own game of four-square. We found an unused square of pavement and practiced and practiced until, dare I say, we actually got pretty good!
One day, a month or two later, we sauntered back to that group of boys and …we won! Those 5th grade boys hung their heads in shame and the entire school cheered. (Well, that’s how I remember it.)
Sarah and I formed a tight bond as we battled those boys. We went on to be best friends through middle school. In eighth grade when Sarah moved across the country we stayed in touch through email and letters and a few cross-country visits. Years later we reunited in college, where we got our first apartment together.
Little did I know that that girl I met when I was nine years old would (literally!) be my BFF, best friend forever!
Recently Sarah came to visit and we sat and reconnected in her AirBNB rental house. We reminisced and talked and encouraged each other for hours. As we did, I loved the way we interrupted each other. I loved that she knows me so well - the good, the bad, and the ugly - and she still wants to spend time with me. I loved that I didn’t have to sit properly or mind my manners or suck in my stomach.
I was utterly, unapologetically myself. And I was loved.
My friendship with Sarah has taught me what a true, biblical friendship can be. This is the quality of friendship that God himself has shown us in his own love for us, and desires for us to have within the community of believers.
The Friendship Decline
My friendship with Sarah has aged like the best kind of old couch. Comfortable, worn in all the right places, and full of memories, with room to create more. But the reality is that most of us don’t have a comfy-old-couch friend.
According to “The State of American Friendships: Change, Challenges, and Loss” a survey from 2021 showed that “Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for personal support.” In 1990, 75% of Americans reported having a best friend; today, only 40% do. What has changed?
Why is friendship so difficult?
I admit that I sometimes find myself tempted to retreat from friendships. My first temptation is to slide into isolation, choosing the comforts of my screens over the hard work of connection. Secondly, I try to hide, attempting to protect myself from hurt by only sharing superficial things. And finally, I can become jealous, getting caught up in comparison, and controlled by my own insecurities. Can you relate?
To forge a comfy-couch friendship, we need to fight back against these temptations of isolation, hiding, and jealousy, and try something different instead.
Choose Intimacy Over Isolation
For a friendship to become a comfy-couch friendship, we have to sit in it. A couch will never be properly worn in if it isn’t used.
When God created the world, a beautiful oasis in Eden, there was one thing wrong. God looked at the man he created and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Gen. 2:18) Our God is a God of community. He existed in the community of the Trinity from the beginning of time. Then he created the world to expand his community to include us. It isn’t an accident (or even a result of the fall) that we need others. Our longing for friends comes from the very image of God.
Many of us retreat when we feel that neediness. We hide in our homes and attempt to wait it out. If you want a comfy-couch friendship, try something new: Lean into that need for friendship. Resist the urge to disown that God-given, God-imagined need.
In order to do that we’ll have to keep in mind our second temptation.
Choose Vulnerability Over Hiding
The comfiest old couches are soft, yielding to the forces that press on them. Who ever heard of a comfy old wood stool? To nurture comfy-couch friendships, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony, naked and vulnerable and yet perfectly safe with one another until the day they sinned. On that day, broken, hurting, and exposed, they ran and hid. Adam said, “I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Gen. 3:10)
We all feel fear when we are vulnerable before others. Am I worthy? Am I loveable? Will he accept me when he sees who I really am? These are all questions that reach to the heart of our sin-shame.
We can fight back against that sin-shame, leaning hard on Jesus’ shed blood and promises for us (1 John 1:9) Then we can push back the effects of the fall by pressing into the risk of vulnerability. Trusting in Jesus’ work in us, we can choose to let ourselves be known, and to know and love others.
Choose Rejoicing Over Jealousy
Comfy old couches are a delight to sit in, not prickly and unwelcoming. To nurture comfy-couch friendships, we will need to set aside our own insecurities and pride .
Right after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God did not desert them but gave a promise of hope: someone was coming to fix this mess (Gen. 3:15). But the damage had been done, and their children also experienced the effects of sin on their relationships. Cain’s jealousy burned against Abel when Abel’s sacrifice was deemed acceptable and his own wasn’t. He attacked his brother in a field and killed him in the first murder.
Jealousy is another sign of our brokenness in sin. It is so tempting to look inward when my friends are celebrating an achievement and think, “What about me?” But God answered that sinful desire when he encouraged us to “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
How can it make a difference in your friendships to remember that it’s not about you?
We rejoice with our friends by resisting the pull to promote our own glory, and remembering the glory is and always has been Jesus Christ’s.
The Greatest Friend of All
"One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." -Proverbs 18:24 (NIV)
Until that day when we all have comfy-couch-friends, we aren’t alone! We have a friend who is the greatest friend of all, when we need Him the most.
"Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend." -Job 16:19-21 (NIV)
Your Best Friend knows you perfectly. He knows what you wish for, and what you fear. He knows how goofy you looked in middle school, and how hard you tried to be cool in high school. He knows that you had to wear your fat jeans today, and that you haven’t worked out in a year.
He knows you as well as any Sarah ever could, and he delights in you. He rejoices over you.
Be utterly, unapologetically you. You are loved by Him.
Kendra Kammer is an active mom of 3 boys. She and her husband, Steve, have been involved in ministry for over 25 years. Kendra especially loves bringing Gods truth alive for others by sharing what God has been teaching her. Check out her blog at CandidlyKendraK.com.