The Difference Christ Makes
In Your Friendships

"Mrs. Mary Woodrum, a widow about 55, jumped to her death early this morning from her apartment on the twelfth floor of ______ Street on the north side of Chicago. Just before she jumped, she saw the building's janitor working on another window across the thirty foot court. Mrs. Woodrum waved to him. He waved back. And then she jumped to her death. On her orderly writing desk, Mrs. Woodrum left this note: 'I can't stand one more day of this loneliness. No sound from my telephone. No mail in my box. No friends.' On the sixth floor of the same big city apartment building lives Mrs. J. Jenkins, another widow. Mrs. Jenkins told reporters: 'I wish I had known she was so lonely. I could have called on her. We could have been friends.' "

   Friendships are as much a part of the "more abundant life" which Jesus came to bring as any of His other great gifts. Without them, life is an empty thing. We need mail in our box. We need telephone calls from our friends. We need friends. We need to know someone cares about us.

Page 160

   When one has lived as long as I have lived in a big city, one learns to spot quickly the lonely people who walk the noisy streets. There is a different look on their faces. No matter how well fed or how well dressed, there is still the look of hunger about them.

   They are lonely. They need friends. Just one friend would change their whole outlook on life. Some of them sit in the parks, hoping another human being will sit down beside them on the park bench. They feed the pigeons and the squirrels but their own hungry hearts go unfed. Some of them are ill. Just yesterday, I saw an elderly man out trying to learn to walk again alone. Obviously he had suffered a stroke. He dragged one leg noticeably. He was pale and drawn and unsteady. And he was alone, trying to rebuild his frail body about which no one apparently cared. I helped him across the icy street, but I couldn't understand him when he spoke. The paralysis was not limited to his leg.

   Around the corner on LaSalle Street, when I got out of a cab not long ago, I stopped and sat down in a doorway beside an unkempt, toothless, drunken woman of Mexican or Puerto Rican birth. I tried to talk to her. I offered to take her to a corner restaurant. But all she would mumble over and over in her broken English was, "Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares." She wouldn't get up from the doorstep. I gave her a piece of paper with the name and address of the Women's Division of the Pacific Garden Mission written on it. I doubt if she went. She couldn't believe I was anything but curious. No one had cared for so long.

   Those of us who have been given the light of Christ's Presence have no excuse for being friendless.

   If you are a friend, you will have friends.

   And surely, if He is in control of your personality you will not only have friends, you will be one. And you will know how to be a creative friend. I am aware that some of you

Page 161

who read this book now may appear friendless. Even if we are centered in Jesus Christ, now and then the circumstances of our lives leave us feeling alone. But I feel quite safe in writing that if you are His, there are persons somewhere who really care about you.

   I would be the last to discount the fact that some human personalities are more attractive than others. You may be shy. You may not be an outgoing personality. If this is true, then you find it more difficult to make friends. But the bonds of love in Jesus Christ leap all self-conscious barriers, if pleasing Him is our first purpose. Too many of us are Christian-type people-pleasers. This is not being controlled by Christ. It is being controlled by people and what they think of us.

   Some of you may be new Christians and you may feel friendless simply because you still feel strange with other Christians and have dropped some of your pursuits in which you felt so comfortable with your old friends. Believe me, I understand your feeling of aloneness.

   You may be reading this book in a hospital or sanatorium where you see your friends from home so seldom that you feel friendless, too. In a sanatorium at Stateville, North Carolina, lies a young girl who is bedfast. But far from friendless. I look forward to Bonnie's mail because her letters are real lifters to me. She hasn't known Jesus Christ for very long, but she is making up for lost time now. Her entire life, body, emotions, mind and spirit are completely under His control and her mail is heavy because she reaches out through it to others; and because she is a friend to those around her in the sanatorium, she is far from lonely.

   If He is first with us, we have to give of ourselves to other people. This requires no premeditation on our part. We may resist inwardly or even outwardly for a minute, but if He is in control, we end up giving! Because He is the great Giver.

Page 162

   "For God so loved the world that He gave ... "

   And when we give, we receive, provided we have not given in order to receive.

   Becoming a Christian has made a complete revolution in my own life where people are concerned. Before I was His, I selected my friends. I have not become an automaton, I still have preferences. But I've found that most of my friends now are the ones He has selected for me. I also find that my spiritual life runs smoothly or it bumps along in direct proportion to how much I am submitting to or fighting His choices

   Before we go further with the subject of close friendships, I would like to say something about casual relationships. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the filling station operator, the clerks in the stores which we patronize. I am convinced that there is no better Christian witness than Christlike behavior at a bargain counter! I am seldom in one place long enough to know about bargains, but the same principle holds true when I stand in a service garage facing the mechanic who promised my car for three P.M. but who now tells me it will be noon tomorrow. It is during these times in our casual relationships when we discover what is really inside us. When we discover who is really at the controls. Belonging to Christ has automatically formed this thought pattern in me: No matter where I am, or with whom I am in contact, that person could find out that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and if I act unlike Him, He will have to take the blow for me!

   If He is uppermost in all our thoughts, we do not have to prod ourselves to remember Him. We realize that we have His reputation in our hands wherever we go. No Christian ever stands up to make a suggestion or refute one in a committee meeting without a reflection of some kind on the very Person of Jesus Christ. No Christian has business dealings

Page 163

with the window-washer or the laundry man without a reflection on Jesus Christ. The committee meeting may be at P.T.A. or at a Garden Club conclave, but if you are a Christian, His reputation is at stake.

   If He is in control of your personality, you will remember this, and you will act accordingly.

   We do not need to be highly trained, full-time Christian workers to remember Jesus. During the last days of my own father's life in the hospital, I watched Christ's control of his personality work over and over again. Both his arms and hands held so many needle punctures that one day when he was very, very weak and ill, three doctors had to be called before one finally managed to set a satisfactory transfusion. The doctors were highly nervous. But their love and respect for my dad's Christianity grew because it was he who kept encouraging them! It was he who kept making jokes with them and reminding them that they'd make it all right because he had turned it over to the Lord before they came into his room.

   In hospitals, in beauty salons, in grocery stores, in banks, in garages, in committee meetings, when the doorbell or the telephone rings, every minute of every day we have the reputation of Jesus Christ to remember. We cannot remember flawlessly. No one has that kind of memory. But if He is in control at the center, He will always act and react exactly like Himself. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever." Under all circumstances. We have an excellent barometer to indicate the condition of our spiritual lives in our casual relationships.

Page 164

   Many labor under the disadvantage of an overly active human personality. The most damaging thing we can do is to draw people to our own charms. The world is full of weak persons who long to depend upon a seemingly stronger human personality. When, inadvertently or consciously, we allow this to happen, we do great harm to those weaker persons.

   This has been a problem with me. A good part of the time, I am quite sickened at my own human personality because I know myself so well. But I do have the heritage of having had parents with unusually outgoing personalities. One of the first things I remember my mother teaching me was how to make the person to whom I am saying "How do you do?" feel warm inside because I have said it. Everyone who knew my father, loved him. My mother is an exceedingly charming woman, with a way about her of making one want to be one's very best when she is around. My brother Joe and I were brought up in an atmosphere of human personality development. Whether we feel like it or not, we "go out" to people when we meet them, simply because we have been taught to do it. Twigs do get bent! And on the whole, I am grateful for this training at home. But I have been guilty of hurting people because of it. Especially if one speaks from a platform or writes books, one easily becomes distorted all out of normalcy to the public. Especially to lonely people who are seeking fulfillment in their empty lives in the questionable, but convenient method of latching onto someone who gives the appearance of a stable personality.

   Sometimes, when I have snatched the controls of my own personality away from Christ (and I do!) I discover myself to be among the most unstable. But the public seldom allows a writer or a speaker to be human. And so, I have unnecessarily hurt many people who think I am something I am most certainly not on my own. I only manage my friendships

Page 165

well when I face the fact (which we must all face) that everything I have, I have been given!

   We need to stay out of the Lord's glorious way. We only block Him when we exert our own charms, however feeble they may be. But now and then, even when we are not blocking Him, an unhealthy, disturbed personality will attach itself to us. I am sure many of you who read this page will have experienced this kind of attachment. My instinct is to want to get away fast and forever! And we need the perfect perception of the Holy Spirit Himself to differentiate between an unhealthy attachment and an honest search for truth. Recently I was beginning to fear a wrong attachment, when the Lord began to work and things turned out well. This person was clinging to me only because she was convinced that I was convinced about Jesus Christ. She is His now and we are good, easy friends.

   Minister's wives frequently have this difficulty in their tireless efforts to help troubled people. I have been relieved greatly by conversations with them in the past. Relieved to find out that there are some people who just will fasten onto us, no matter what we do or do not do.

   Jesus has said, "Feed my sheep." We must do it. But feeding sheep is not done in the always well regulated restaurant atmosphere of quiet emotions. There are deep valleys and craggy ravines and turbulent streams and high rocks to cross and many times, after we've crossed them we find the sheep aren't hungry after all. They just wanted to know us better!

   Actually, I don't have many close friends. I find I can no longer afford that luxury. I travel too much for one thing. But the main impediment to close friendships is the constant fear that some who want to be "special" will lean on me instead of on Jesus Christ. And I can do nothing for anyone. My closest friends, the few to whom I would turn if I were in trouble, are not usually my regular correspondents either!

Page 166

We are really friends and our love does not need to be pumped up with letters and primed with visits and long distance telephone calls.

   The Bible tells us that we are not to have "inordinate affection" for another human being. It might be well for us to take a look at Webster's definition for the word "inordinate" right here. "Not ordered or kept within bounds; unregulated, unrestrained; hence, excessive, immoderate."

   I believe this Scriptural admonition concerns husbands and wives, as well as any relationship outside the marital pattern. I believe it concerns mothers and their children, too. I have come in contact with many mothers who have had "inordinate affection" for their sons or daughters. Usually it is only for one of their children. The much written about Oedipus complex (the inordinate affection of a child for the parent of the opposite sex) should be much written about. I know of one such instance where the son has embarked on his fourth marriage, simply because his attachment for his mother is stronger than any other.

   True friendship, controlled and regulated by the love of Christ Himself, is the first necessary ingredient for the right parent-child relationship. For the right husband and wife relationship.

   And certainly it is the first necessary ingredient for the right parent-child relationship. For the right husband and wife relationship.

   And certainly it is the first necessary ingredient for right friendships between women. Many of you would be shocked at the number of heartbroken and troubled letters I receive from Christian women who are deeply embroiled in "inordinate affection" for each other. In most cases, they believe they are remaining true to Christ because they have not become involved in what they call "immorality." But my heart aches for them, because regardless of their actual behavior, they have permitted another person to get into God's place in their lives. Certainly, I understand their heartache. Certainly, I understand how these things happen. One woman's

Page 167

husband was threatening to divorce her for another woman. (All persons involved were Christian believers.) Her heart was so smashed she turned to a woman friend for comfort. Later, her husband changed his mind and no longer wanted the divorce. But her attitudes and feelings toward him had changed in the meantime. She had turned to the woman friend who had comforted her. Now, he threatens to divorce again. But for a different reason. He refuses to allow her close woman friend in the house. There is a dangerous triangle. And only if Christ is once more put in the center of this woman's life can tragedy be avoided.

   Another woman I know writes to her woman friend every day! And if there is stormy weather and the air mails are not on schedule, she is panicky when her letter doesn't arrive. Like a lovesick school girl, she runs to a telephone and places a long distance call. At the moment, her telephone bill is far beyond her. And she is a nervous wreck, living from day to day for those beloved letters.

   She is lovesick. And she will remain a sick woman until she remembers that her friend is not love, God is love. In my own life I have watched Him work wonderfully through close friendships. He reached me for Himself through a close friend. He has now sent another friend to work with me and to live with me. We all need one or two real friends in whom we can confide the deepest yearnings of our hearts. We all need companionship. We need someone to whom we don't have to explain ourselves. Someone who "gets" our humor, who loves us even when we are unlovely.

   Someone upon whom we can depend in times of crisis. My associate, Rosalind Rinker, was like a rock to me during my father's illness last year. She prayed with me. She prayed with Mother. She helped us get our hasty meals together. She let me talk and talk at night after long hours at the hospital, when I was too upset to sleep. She was there in all ways.

Page 168

She was a real friend. To Mother and to me. And if ever I needed a friend, I needed one during those endless days and weeks while my beloved dad lay dying in a hospital.

   But our friendship is on a permanent, easy, secure basis because it is not centered in us. It is centered in Jesus Christ. I am not her security and she is not mine. He is our security. We can fail each other but He will never fail us.

   Jesus Christ is definitely in favor of close friendships. John felt so secure in his special place in the Lord's heart that he dared to write of himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Guilelessly, he laid his head on Jesus' shoulder even at the supper table. Jesus Christ is not against close friendships. He is never against love. He is love! But because he is love and because He is an all-wise God, He jealously guards His central position in our lives. He isn't angry if you are centering your affections on someone else. He is grieved. Because He knows exactly how He created the moral laws which He built right into this universe. He knows that only heartache and trouble can result when we disobey. He doesn't demand the center in our lives just to prove His power. He demands it because He knows what is in man and what is in woman, and knowing this, He knows that only He is capable of coping with and satisfying our deepest longings.

   If you know someone who is involved in an "inordinate affection" right now, someone who is being "excessive" and "disorderly" in the handling of her emotions, for Jesus' sake, don't condemn her! Show her quietly and lovingly that He is all in favor of love. And let her see through your love and understanding, that since He is love, He and He alone knows what will eventually bring her the most happiness. Actually, a woman involved in an "inordinate affection" can turn out to be an unusually strong Christian. These tendencies show a deep, deep God capacity. They show a deep, deep love capacity

Page 169

and this is always God capacity. Because God is love.

   And He is forever mindful of all our human relationships. Not for one minute is He unaware of us. Not for one minute is He unaware of our need to love and to be loved. Time spent alone with Him, discovering His real intentions toward us, will inevitably result in His wooings to Himself. And when He is in charge of our emotions, they are orderly and they run smoothly. Smoothly and deeply. More deeply because like a keep, powerful river, their banks are high and regular. And like a deep river, they reach their destination.

Chapter Thirteen  ||  Table of Contents