The Grace of Spiritual Friendship

Companions for the Journey Who Keep Our Hearts Anchored in Christ

By Jane Rubietta

The phone rang in the middle of Luann’s busy day. “Luann,” her friend whispered, tears tightening her voice, “I don’t know what to do about my son. He is using drugs.”

Luann delayed her next appointment and listened. She asked wise questions. She shared ideas when appropriate. And she prayed over the phone. Luann’s total availability and her own grief as she wept with her friend gave hope and direction—and much needed companionship in the often overwhelming wasteland of transition.

There is no greater privilege than being present to another person in pain. No greater gift than to know we do not traverse the desert alone. No greater joy than holding another in time of crisis, carrying that person to the Father and, with love, transferring our loved one to him. How God longs to love us through relationships with others.

Wilderness Friendship

When God summoned Moses back from his forty-year escape tending sheep, Moses’ final protest was, “Look, God, I know all about you, but I can’t talk well so just send someone else, OK?”

God’s anger showed up then: “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you” (Exo. 4:14). Aaron found Moses and approached him. And even though he had plenty of reasons to be furious with Moses for disappearing and abandoning his strategic position within the king’s empire, Aaron’s “heart was glad” when he saw Moses.

And from two estranged brothers raised in entirely different households, God created a wilderness team that would endure forty years. Rarely can we survive the wilderness alone, though that is our proclivity.

Thankfully, God who created us knows our need for companionship and accountability, in spite of our protests. He formed a desert partnership that would rescue a nation from slavery, take them on a four-decade journey of faith and save them. He longs to create desert partnerships for us, as well. As with Moses and Aaron, spiritual friendships complete our weaknesses.

I hesitate to use the word fellowship here. The term itself conjures up images of potlucks in dank church basements, of flighty conversation and “I’m fine-ness” in the foyer and aisles of church. Perhaps less trivialized is the term spiritual friendship.