Holy Friendships

I went on a short trip recently to visit some friends.  Despite the insane weather, I braved the icepocolypse that hit Dallas.  Why’d I risk my life… because these aren’t just any old friends I went to see.  These are my friends that I served with on the Missionary Staff at the Pines Catholic camp last year.  We don’t get to see each other very often because we live in different parts of the country now, so it was really important for me to see them. 
There’s a lot that I could say about these people.  These are the people I woke up with at 5:00 am to go work out before retreats.  We went on road trips together to visit family, friends and to celebrate birthdays.  We crossed the State for staff retreats and a camper roundup.  Sometimes we just went to Panda Express so that I could practice making a fool out of myself.  All of these good times spent with them has given me so much but I learned even more from working along side them day in and day out.  They have pushed me spiritually, mentally, physically, and culturally which, honestly, was frustrating at times.  I learned and grew so much just from living and working with them.  I consider them family and just being around them brings me Joy.
The relationships I have with these friends only continue to stay strong because we make an effort to stay in touch and invest in each other.  This takes time, effort, and commitment from me, but it’s definitely worth it.  I know at least for me, I get so much more back from them.  Like this trip for example, the time spent with them gave me so much inspiration and energy to continue moving deeper in relationship with God and helping lead others closer to Him.  I’m convinced it needs to be important for all of us.  Maybe you’ve caught onto how important having Godly friendships is for me.
As youth ministers, sometimes, we can get caught up in spending all of our time with the circle of people we are ministering to.  We are constantly thinking of extra things that we can do or ways we can do things we’re already doing better all to help serve and bring our youth and families closer to God.  All of this takes time and energy.  Then we can feel guilty whenever we commit ourselves to anything else, whether that’s an adult small group, missionary reunion, or investing ourselves in friendships outside of ministry circles.  We have to stop fooling ourselves, me included.  We need people that we can call on to intercede for us with their powerful payers.  We need people we can trust to give us good advice, who understand us, and who listen to us when we need someone to talk to.  We also need those people who will challenge us to grow in holiness.  It says in Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so man sharpens his fellow man.”  This only happens when you have friends that can be honest with you and ask you what’s going on in your life and really mean it.
Do you have friends that are sharpening you as “iron sharpens iron”?  If not, pray for some and start trying to find holy community.  If you have these God-given friends and family, how are you doing keeping in touch and fostering growth with the friends and family that do this for you?  If you haven’t asked yourself this, or thought about it in a while, then it’s about time you did.  It’s worth the effort to maintain holy friendships.