Being the Trusted Friend
How Might We Be?
I’ll go first. I sent an email out to three new friends with a proposition. I wanted to bring them closer to the center of my life. These new friends were the first friends I had had that didn’t come from or had the opportunity to lead to work since I was in high school. We met in a larger group that had committed to meeting regularly to study the Bible. Within a few months we realized that we actually liked each other and found ourselves developing friendships beyond the commitment to study. We would visit with each other, celebrate and mourn together, and offer to help each other when we could. With this foundation, and some encouragement I decided to take a step further. So, I sent an email. I went first.
I wanted to make myself more specifically accountable to these three friends from the group for sharing what was really going on with me. I knew I was at a stage of life that was formative, and wanted more formal external support. This wasn’t counseling, this was just more intimate friendship. In one way, I was hedging against the fact that I can easily find myself isolated, happy to spend time on my own – immersed in all the things I feel responsible for. I can jump from project to project, responsibility to responsibility, not talking with many people and not sensing the day go by. I’m the cat that forgets to eat. I should say here that while isolation is generally seen as not good, solitude is generally seen as good. The former may be initiated out of fear or punishment, while the latter is a conscious separation for a time from the momentum our social relationships build in us. Isolation can creep in. Solitude is a choice for the sake of an interruption.
In inviting my friends closer into my life, I was hedging against my tending toward a life in isolation, both physical and spiritual. I wanted them to see me, and know me, and to be able to look for things in me that would not be good – signs of overwhelm or over-confidence for example. But I had to go first. I had to send the email. I had to ask them if they would be willing to be entrusted with this part of my life. I had already decided that I would trust them if they were willing to be trusted. This was a big ask. This wouldn’t just be a casual lunch or phone call here and there. This would be reading and commenting on quarterly reports on my personal, work, and spiritual life – something I had never even endeavored to write before, let alone share in such an intentional way.
There was a risk of exposure in all of this. I was intentionally stepping into a space in which the whole goal was to be found out. No more hiding. One of the friends, in their response to the invitation recognized the implicit risk on their part, too. “If you are inviting me to know you, then you are going to need to know me, too.” They got it.
The vulnerability of being known is only a risk in the midst of relationships that are unknown. I wasn’t sure how my friends would respond to my invitation. Like a gift, each in their own unique ways, they lovingly responded to the invitation and have become some of my closest friends. This of course isn’t always the case. If you had asked me five years ago, if I would consider this a good plan for life, I would have said, “What?!?!?” It was so far off of my radar it was laughable. I’m not recommending everyone need a personal council or mastermind group. What I am saying is that the discipline of paying close attention to the personal, work, and spiritual areas of my life, and doing that with, or at least in front of, trusted friends has been formative for me.
If there is a takeaway for me, from this journey thus far, it is this: I have learned more about what it looks like to be a trusted friend by seeing how my friends have been with me than ever before. What a gift it has been to receive friendship in this way. It is way more than I was hoping for when I initially offered the invitation. I was hoping to have help, for when things got hard. Instead, I got friends for every time and season. Now that’s a thing.
Further, I was given models for what it looks like to be trustworthy. My three friends are spectacularly different from one another. Their personalities, sensitivities, histories, language, perspectives – almost everything is different. The way each of them show up in my life is different. Yet, I can’t imagine this group of friends being any other way. They have each provided key insights and support, and come alongside me in their own unique ways in both easy and hard times. I can only hope that the friendship hasn’t just been one way.
Which, finally, brings me to what I’ve been thinking about this week. What does it mean to be the trusted friend? It seems like there is this wonderful thing that happens when someone else decides that we are trustworthy. Maybe there are the moments of concern and anxiety around whether or not we think we are ready to take whatever responsibility comes with that. But then there is the realization that someone else, maybe even someone we trust, thinks we are trustworthy. They see something in us, that we may be blind to. Maybe we’re so focused on the thing we’re working to be better at that we don’t realize that we’re already good enough to be trustworthy at least in some things. I wonder what would happen if we were to trust our friends’ judgement of our own character? On the other hand, maybe we feel confident in our abilities and character in certain areas of life and are waiting to be entrusted.
In the world of leadership, business, and teams, there is quite a large amount of literature around trust as a core component of a high-performing team. The writers behind this body of work are much smarter than I am, so I’m only going to point out that the work exists. I will also make one comment. That is that for all the research and writing that happens around teams in the business world, they seem to be mediated by a perspective centered around high-achievement, high-performance, efficiency, and other result orientations often dictated by the market. I’m not sure, but I think trust in that environment takes on a different quality than trust among friends who are caring for one another’s heart.
This makes me think of an aspect of trust for the follower of Jesus. For whomever has been drawn to and opened up to see and hear the reality of Jesus has been entrusted with something. Further, whomever has publicly proclaimed this reality, or even further decided to follow Jesus, is further entrusted with something. What is this something? It is the literal re-presentation of one’s experience with Jesus to those around them. As the follower of Jesus grows on their journey, there may be a greater shift from re-presentation, the retelling of experiences, to becoming a carrier of a kind of mark, someone who’s being is so deeply formed by their journey that it simply shows. In this state, one’s being can affect others, with less retelling necessary. Can you imagine, for a moment, being entrusted with that kind of power? Can you imagine what Jesus would have to have seen in you to say, come, follow me, I find you trustworthy to carry my name? Can you imagine how much he cares about you to offer that? Can you imagine how invested Jesus would be in who are and who you become, with you now carrying his name? Now that is being a trusted friend.