The silver screen boasts many heartwarming scenes of friendship and teamwork. We get hit with "the feels" (sorry, the "feeeeeeeeels") when we observe the loyal companionship of our favorite golden trio or spunky crime solving duo. Through danger and deception, through space and time, our beloved doctors and detectives, wizards and time lords, hobbits and heroes grasp each other firmly by the hands and stand together until the very end. But if we're so easily captured by these displays of love and fellowship, why is it that we sometimes deny ourselves this same experience? Why do some of us pull away when others offer to help us carry our burdens? Why do we apologize and hesitantly respond, our guts sinking with the fear of being troublesome or annoying?
In my own life, I've found myself playing out the same hypocrisy many times. I would beg my dearest friends to share their troubles with me, to allow me to weep with them and comfort them if I could. I insisted that I would sit with them and wait for the rising of the sun, keeping a weather eye on the horizon. When they would withdraw or keep secret their weights and struggles, I would bemoan their lonely battle and sometimes even scold them. I wanted to be a part of their life, not kept on the sidelines. The deceptions shook the bonds of communion and created chasms that at times felt too wide to bridge. But the Lord made a way, and allowed us to share in both the trail and the celebration of victory. And healthy trust could blossom once more!
And yet...and yet.... when I found myself going through hard times, I would hesitate to reach out to these same people because I feared to be a burden. I didn't want them to get tired of me; I didn't want to lean on them to the point where they wanted to rid themselves of me. Surely I was annoying! Surely they thought I was just craning for attention. I'd apologize profusely and I simply didn't believe my friends when they would reassure me that it was a joy to be with me in the bad times, that they loved me and were certainly not irritated with me. Even if they felt that way today, how could I be sure they would keep that resolve tomorrow? And I forgot the times that I had offered the same words of encouragements to friends who had texted me these anxiety-filled apologies.
But slowly and surely, God is teaching me to hope for a time where my brothers and sisters and I can freely give and freely receive support and love without fear. Yes, sometimes we don't always say the right words or we handle conversations indelicately. But God can always restore, make better our people skills and strengthen our ability to act out love.
People are afraid of being labeled, judged, and ultimately let down and left behind. Our insistent isolation or constant guilt for reaching out can be linked to insecurity about ourselves. Or, even if we feel secure in who we are, we worry about others' negative perception of us and consequential rejection. The Enemy emboldens these fears to disrupt fellowship and keep us from obeying the Lord's commandments: to bear with one another, carry each other's burdens, weep with those who weep and rejoice together later (Galatians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 13:7, Romans 12:15).
It is Biblical and at our God's command to share the load and bear one another's burdens in love.
God does not ask for us to develop a Savior complex and put the entire burden on ourselves to save the other person. He does not ask us to begrudgingly offer aid or rely on our own strength to support a friend. He does not ask us to help out with expectations of being paid back (we should help others even if we know they can never return the favor).
He asks us to become reliant on His love, His wisdom, His power to enable us to play our part in loving our community, our friends. He asks us to be joyful in giving our time and attention to those who need it. God put fellowship in place because it is essential to us.
Human beings were created for relationship amongst one another in part because it allows us to understand God better, Who as a Trinity is Relationship itself.
Friendship allows us to better understand the love of Jesus when He calls us "friend." When we are having trouble feeling God's presence in our late night prayers, when the Bible doesn't really seem to be giving us anything, we can find God's love and tenderness in the hug of a companion. The love of a brother, the love of a sister, these can be one way God meets us in times where we cannot fight on our own.
Now, we may also reject help from others because of the pride in that us. You don't want to receive help so that you can claim all the credit and achievement for yourself once an obstacle is overcome. Or maybe you've just been conditioned to be self-sufficient and to rely on yourself, because that kind of achievement is continually rewarded. This, of course, is not healthy because we are encouraged to share the victory with Christ who wins our battles for us and more than this, we are to allow our community to have a share in that enjoyment of the victory as well. The joy of God's love can then multiply and we can experience the wonder of having a "shared joy", something that can elevate happiness and enjoyment sometimes beyond isolated, individual involvement.
Other still may have a different concern. They've heard of unhealthy emotional dependency and don't want to get caught up in that. It's wise to be cautious and good to be aware of this. We don't want our entire happiness or sense of fulfillment to be tied to the actions of any singular human, though we acknowledge that human relationships add greatly to our happiness. Emotional attachment becomes unhealthy from a Christian perspective when God is not included in your associations or reliance on external sources for emotional nourishment, much less at the pinnacle of your happiness. Emotional idolization of others happens when we fail to recognize the God orchestrating your successful and healthy human relationships, when you don't see that providing and sustaining these bonds are His way of loving you. While God often works through others to love on you and support you, it becomes unhealthy when you push God out of the picture or fail to acknowledge that He's the One loving you too.
What's also unhealthy? The obvious is berating others for trying to help; the less obvious, when you constantly allow fear and anxiety to lead you to reject or hesitate to accept the help trustworthy friends offer.
Personally this is still something I struggle with. I don't want my loved ones to think I am overly entitled or arrogant to ask for their support. I still grapple with the fear of being thought of as annoying or tiresome. But I write all this in the hope that one day all of us will learn to freely give and freely receive a helping hand.
For fun: A link to one of my favorite on-screen friendship scenes!
Start at 0:42 if you'd like an inspirational quote. Start at 1:29 for friendship feels.
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