Editing My Friends List

Most people are on some sort of social networking site (or several). Those who are may have edited their friends list. Over the course of time, you get to be "friends" with people who fade from your life or whom you never really knew anyway. Some may be people you met once and thought they were really cool, but never had a reason or opportunity to speak to them again. And so you purge your friends list from time to time. Or I do, about once a year.

There's so-and-so who friended me and I know I knew them in college, but we were never really friends, so he's gone. Here's a woman I dated a few times, but she's far enough away that our paths will never cross and I think she's seeing someone else anyway, so sayonara to her. There's another person who can't seem to have a conversation with me without telling me how awful their life is, so adios.

Some of the reasons I use to clean up my friends list may be perfectly valid; others, perhaps not. But I've rarely gone out with the intention of meeting people, much less adding them to my friends list. It's not just that I'm introverted, it's that my friendships just sort of happen. I don't actively seek out new people, let alone try to get a certain type of person as a friend. Granted, most of my opportunities to meet new people comes through church, so the variety of my pool is a bit limited, but even if it wasn't, would I actively seek out those who need a friend the most?

We all need friends, whether Christian or not, but those without Christ need not just me as their friend, but an example of what Christ is like. Do we really show that to people? Do we seek out opportunities to do it? Jesus didn't hang out with the church crowd all the time. Yes, He spoke in synagogues and talked to Pharisees and Sadducees, but He also made fast friends with prostitutes, tax collectors (who were essentially government-sanctioned thieves), adulterers, and other such "unholy" people.

I once had dinner with a former prostitute. I was going for a walk back when I lived in Tulsa and she wanted someone to escort her to IHOP across several parking lots and then across a street. It was pretty late and the parking lots were dark, so I agreed to that and then she insisted on buying me dinner and she told me her story. She'd gotten saved a few years before that night and was trying to get into the college I'd just graduated from. I listened and thought it was a good story, but I honestly don't know if I'd have had dinner with her if she was a prostitute at the time. I almost certainly wouldn't have sought out her company to hear her story and talk to her about God. I don't think about such things often now and I don't have that many opportunities (or perhaps I simply don't make them), but I wonder if I would take them if they appeared before me.

About a year ago, a few friends and I were coming back from a basketball game and taking the metro out to a station. There was a woman who was trying to hold it in, but was crying and obviously in deep emotional pain. I felt an urge to talk to her, but I didn't. I was afraid of her snapping at me, of making a fool of myself, of embarrassing her, and just thought she would clam up, apologize for crying, and say everything was fine.

Perhaps the most striking example, though only because I know the end result, was that someone I worked with when I first moved into the area committed suicide. He was even newer than I was and messed up big-time about a month or two in. My boss, who seemed close to the CEO, told me this guy would be fired. I felt bad, because I was getting to know this guy; he sat right next to me. This guy called me that night and asked point blank if I knew whether he was getting fired. I couldn't lie to him, but I told him maybe if he promised to make things right, his boss and the CEO might give him another chance. I told him to come in on Monday (this mess happened on a Friday), apologize, and work his butt off to fix it and see what happens. He mentioned something about, "If I never see you again, thanks for being a good friend." In retrospect, maybe that should have warned me more clearly, but I thought he just meant if he was fired, our paths likely wouldn't cross.

The next day, he killed himself.

I'm not saying I take responsibility for his decision or that it's my fault this happened. What I am saying is maybe I was supposed to say something to him sooner, something about God or getting to know him on a more personal level or just something that would give him hope...and I didn't. He was just a work friend to me.

I know it's impractical and potentially dangerous to just be friends with everyone. Unless God guides me to, I'm not going to go downtown and preach to a gang (and even then, it would have to be a strong guidance). I also recognize that it can be a bad idea to hang out with people who do things that you struggle with. A person struggling with lust might not be the best evangelist to a prostitute, for example. Yet how many people do we pass every day who look like maybe they just want someone to talk to? Like they're trying to see a glimmer of hope in a life that's falling apart at the seams? Like they need Jesus?

Maybe it's time for me to edit my friends list in a different way, not in cutting people, but in finding people who really need, not another friend, but a true Friend.