Our Biggest Friendship Struggle

I have really loved reading your answers to these questions. I'd love to extend the contest for one more day, and I'll announce the randomly drawn winner on Wednesday for a copy of Rachel Olsen's new book It's No Secret. Please leave a comment on Friday's post with your name and email if you'd like to add to the discussion.

I wasn't surprised to read that most of you said that time is the biggest struggle in your friendships, because I would say the same thing. I'm an extrovert who would love nothing more that a schedule full of coffee and lunch dates with my friends, but real life interrupts!

This week I want to share some thoughts about time that I wrote earlier this summer. Food for thought for those of us with this struggle...

I was attending a Christian conference where the facilitator gave us a startling exercise. For step one, he ask us to write our top five priorities in any order. I quickly wrote the things that most people in the room were probably writing: God, family, friends, work, church. Done.

In the next step of the exercise, the facilitator asked the group to number their priorities in order with1 being the highest to 5 being the lowest. Hmmm… This was a little harder. I knew what I should write, but I wanted to try to be very honest. I deliberated for a few minutes and then ranked my priorities.

It was the last step that was the real eye-opener. The facilitator gave the last instruction, “Now number your priorities in the order that you spend time on them with 1 being where you spend the most time and 5 being where you spend the least.” I sat stunned, because the purpose of the exercise had suddenly become clear. I knew that the truth was right before me. The real order of my priorities was revealed by how I spend my time.

Time. What a struggle our culture has with time! As Americans we have more conveniences, more appliances and more technology than ever before to help us save time and yet we seem busier and more strung out than ever. Os Guinness, the author of Prophetic Untimeliness, writes, “Today at the high noon of modern life, time in the clock-driven world has become so precise and coordinated that it’s all around us, driving us from behind, pulling us from in front, pressing us from above, and squeezing us from all sides. The gods on our wrists have become in the words of Charles Baudelaire, ‘the sinister god.’”

How in the world are we to reverse this trend? How are we called to live by sacrificing our time to build relationships? I believe it’s by taking a hard, honest look at our priorities and our values and beginning to live what we say we believe. I cannot in all honesty say that I value building deep, out of the box friendships while I spend little to no time on those relationships.

My problem is probably the same as yours. I often have more on my agenda or calendar than I can really accomplish. The title of that little book The Tyranny of the Urgent could sometimes be the banner of my life. I so easily get caught up in the little things—phone calls, email, Facebook, laundry, running errands—that the important things go by the wayside. And what are the important things? The people around me.

I once heard Martha Lawley, an accomplished author and speaker, say, “What if we could tiptoe into God’s office and peek into His day timer for our lives? What would be on God’s calendar for me?” She followed with a question that continues to rock me. “And what would not be on God’s calendar for me?”

I think that’s the critical question if we’re serious about getting our time in order with our priorities. What am I currently doing that is not in God’s plan for me? You and I get into trouble when we step outside of God’s plan and begin adding our own agenda. Our snags come when we begin to say “yes” to those things which should be a “no”.

If we were to ask God to list His agenda, I believe it’s consistent with scripture to say that relationship would be very high on the list. I want more than anything for my priorities to begin to match His priorities. If that’s what you want too, then I think we’ve got to do several things to get our agendas synched with His.