The Spiritual Practice of Soul Friendship

The underlying rationale for the spiritual disciplines is to model our spiritual practices after those demonstrated by Jesus Christ. I recently presented this rationale to a group of ministers and was accused of advocating WWJD as an appropriate course of action.

WWJD? That’s right: What would Jesus do?

It was a thinly veiled accusation that I was advocating for living your Christian life via the power of self-resolve—the power of the flesh. By emulating Jesus, you sanctify yourself before God.

It’s a bogus accusation, but worthy of a few words of explanation: WWJD is an inspirational, provoking question, but it is conceived upon two fallacies. First, WWJD assumes that you could do what Jesus would do. Second, WWJD assumes Jesus is not present.

Let’s be clear: God has not called you to live the Christ-life, the Christian life. That’s an impossibility. It’s backward theology. God has called you to let the indwelling Christ live His life through you.

It is bad theology to say that you get better—more holy, more sanctified—as you try harder to live a godly life.

Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not progressively sanctify you—make you holier and holier until God says, “Okay, child. That’ll do.” You are either totally sanctified or you are totally unsanctified. You are either holy or you are unholy.

Your acceptance with God is determined singularly by what you’ve done with Jesus Christ’s offer of redemption. If you have surrendered your life to Him, then you are alive in Christ. If you have rejected His offer of redemption, then you are excluded from the life of Christ and are dead to God.

Acceptance with God is binary: You are either in Christ and accepted or you are not in Christ.

Practicing the spiritual disciplines has nothing to do with sanctification, holiness, justification, righteousness, or acceptance with God. All of these tenets of the faith are determined and satisfied in and through Jesus Christ. You are the beneficiary of these tenets of the faith when you become a Believer.

This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Redemption is remarkable. But this is why we call the Gospel amazing grace.

It only makes sense that you examine the life of your Older Brother to conceptualize the inconceivable, believe the unbelievable, and grasp that His life can and will empower your life now.

As such, it is not only possible, but it is the divine intent that you know, understand, and actively embrace God as your Father, just as Jesus demonstrated. It’s what Older Brothers do.

Early in His ministry, Jesus selected twelve followers, the folks we know as His disciples. Yes, He trained them, prepared them, blessed them, and sent them out as sheep among wolves. They carried the Gospel into the world after their empowerment with the Spirit. All but John died martyrs and he died an exile on Patmos.

At first blush, Jesus selected twelve to ensure His Gospel legacy had longevity. But even though Christianity thrives in the hearts of millions, it is a stretch of rationale to attribute the spread of Christianity to the fidelity of the disciples. Yes, they dedicated their lives to the cause of Christ and died faithful, but they were hardly exemplary.

Brennan Manning notes that Jesus referred to Peter as “the Rock,” but in reality he was a pile of sand. You can make similar cases for the others. The survival and progress of Christianity is multi-faceted and is the voluminous study of the church—and I’m saving that topic for another day!

The point for us is, there has to be something besides legacy going on in Jesus’ mind when He selects the twelve. We grasp what the disciples did, and we are the beneficiaries of Christianity, but what did Jesus Himself hope to gain by surrounding Himself with the twelve?

Jesus, God-incarnate, launched a divine initiative that we know as the Gospel of Christianity. But Jesus, the fully-human man, laid aside His divinity and took upon Himself flesh and blood. He loved, and hurt, and ate and drank, and laughed, and grieved—so that after all was said and done, Jesus could say, “I suffered in every way you suffer. I lived so completely that I identify with all aspects of what it means to be human. I understand.”

In His human understanding, Jesus knew He required friends. Not just friends with whom He fished, but friends who knew His soul, friends with whom He bonded. This soul friendship that Jesus demonstrated is the essence of the spiritual discipline of practicing soul friendship.

Milton observed that “no sparrow lacks a friend with whom to roam.” The one whose eye is on the sparrow, who notes when each little avian body falls, understood that He too needed—required—friends with whom to roam. So, He selected for Himself twelve in hopes they would become soul-level friends.

Andrew and Peter, brothers, fishermen. Both martyrs by crucifixion, but Peter, considering himself unworthy to die like his friend Jesus died, requested to be hanged upside down.

Bartholomew, a man with royal blood. Jesus chose this man, also known as Nathaniel, because he had no guile. There was nothing false or contrived. He was honest and without pretense. He succumbed to death while being fileted like a fish because he would not renounce his friend, Jesus.

James and his brother John, both fishermen, both intolerant, aggressive, and ambitious. James lost his head to Herod, the first of Jesus’ friends to be martyred for his loyalty. Attempts were made on John’s life, but the one known for his deep love, died in exile for his loyalty to the one whom he loved: Jesus.

James son of Alpheus, an exemplary and fiery man, known for his strong character, died while his body was being sawn apart. The reason for his death was his refusal to renounce his faith in his friend, Jesus.

Thaddaeus, also a son of Alpheus, gifted with miracle powers. Like his brother, Thaddaeus was martyred for his friend while in Ararat. His execution was conducted with arrows.

Judas, the friend who failed. He betrayed his friend with a kiss in exchange for a few coins totaling less than the amount prescribed by law to pay for a slave accidentally killed.

Matthew, a usurious tax-collector and a hated man. Before his martyrdom, he wrote a biography of his friend in both Greek and Hebrew.

Philip, the first to leave everything and follow Jesus. He was possessed of a warm and generous heart that out-paced his mind’s ability to trust. In the end, while in the process of being hanged for belief in his friend, requested that his body be wrapped in papyrus rather than in linen, not wishing to be interred with the same process as his friend, Jesus.  

Simon, a member of the Zealots. Fanatical, loyal, dedicated to the Jewish resistance against Roman rule, pure-hearted, pledged to faithfulness and suffering without remorse. In time, he was the friend who championed following Jesus willfully, versus the compulsion required by the Zealots. Justus Lipsius reports that Simon was sawn in half for his friend.

Thomas: pessimistic, cautious, calculating, but once his mind was decided, courageously loyal. He was executed by spear while in India. His crime was failure to renounce Jesus, in whom he believed.

Clearly, Jesus surrounded Himself with more than golfing buddies, bunko babes, or Sunday stalwarts.

Father God, may you please surround each of us with such a band of soul friends as our Older Brother enjoyed. Amen

Fishing together, playing cards, eating, drinking, traveling, and sitting by the fire are integral to friendship. However, they aren’t the stuff of soul friendship as much as they are the settings in which soul friendship takes root and forms.

Friendships of the soul form during quality time. But you don’t realize quality time unless you invest in quantity time.

By all appearances, Jesus was thoughtful and strategic in selecting His friends. They were a diverse, thoughtful, rowdy, unruly, and disparate collection of men. About the only thing they had in common was that several of them knew how to fish. Group theorists would call them a heterogeneous group: a complex collection of unlikely colleagues.

Jesus chose this diverse assemblage to be His friends because He recognized that He was not a simple person. Given His complex soul, Jesus invited a diverse group to compliment His complexity.

As a human being, Jesus required friends of His soul. But not just any friends. Everyone wasn’t capable of being a soul friend to Jesus. By choosing these twelve, He wasn’t being exclusive; He was being realistic, about Himself, and His soul’s needs. Lewis writes, “By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”

Jesus surrounded Himself with likely candidates. He knew He needed friends to showcase and magnify Him fully.

Jesus’ friends helped Him demonstrate His complete self, the individual affirmed in our creed: “existing fully as God, and fully as man, with a relational soul and human body.”

Jesus and His friends spent time—quantity time—together. There must have been copious campfires, long miles, and more conversation than the Bible contains. Over time, interspersed midst the mundane, the magic of souls bonded together in soul friendship transpired. Jesus and the twelve became true friends—a soul-level network made strong in their diversity, shared experience, candid confession, and soul-searching reliance upon each other.

At the risk of being labeled outdated, but in all candor, it is not possible to build soul friendship via social media, fleeting moments, and large-group events. These are either too limited, too shallow, too brief, or too lacking in substance to give soul friendship even a fractional chance of forming.

Long before the advent of social media, and even prior to mass urbanization, Henry David Thoreau observed that, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. Unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”

In ancient and medieval times, it was believed that soul friendship was the purest and truest means to deeper and more joyful, genuine living. Apart from friendship, they observed that all of life required striving for survival and status. But in soul friendship, it was possible to get away from the stressors of life and rise to the heights of soul-fulfillment where gods and angels dwell.

The busy, demanding pace of today’s lifestyle is an enemy to developing and practicing soul friendship. In fact, busyness is a deadly poison to soul-level friendship. Even a telephone call to catch up or a reunion with old friends are unlikely forums to secure the bond of your soul to another’s.

You can neither schedule nor shortchange the quality time in which soul friendship takes root. Quality time occurs serendipitously within copious quantities of time together.

As you can see, the spiritual practices of rest and soul friendship are complimentary. But not only these. In his explorations of how the Body of Christ functions together, Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together about how daily pace, shared meals, singing together, reading Scripture and other literature together, confession, and worship all formulate the cohesion of life together as a group and soul friendship among a smaller group.

While soul friends with the twelve, there was a tighter group of three—Peter, James, and John—with whom Jesus identified and connected even more deeply within His soul. Having three intimate soul friends doesn’t make Jesus restrictive or selective, it demonstrates His humanity. The majority of people are mentally and emotionally incapable of having more than 3-5 intimate friends.

Jesus’ practice of the spiritual disciplines was not merely a demonstration of principles. It was a portrait of cohesive, thoughtful, integrated living. He understood that in order to realize and satisfy the desire of His heart, He needed to live a disciplined life that advanced His freedom to communicate with God.

Specifically, by surrounding Himself with soul friends, Jesus was able to realize and demonstrate to a shining luster who He was, His priorities in life, and His purpose in living as the Light in a dark world.

There is challenge in each of the disciplines. I suppose that’s why they are called disciplines, and because they are challenging, they require practice. But for the record, I labor more with the basis of soul friendship than any of the other disciplines.

What is that basis? Time.

Soul friendship takes time.

Of course, the time required to form soul friendship is not onerous—or, it doesn’t have to be. It just forces a decision that is both blessing and curse: Will I maintain my pace and fulfill the current demands I feel, or will I curtail other things and prioritize time to care for my soul with friends?

Not to beat a dead horse, but there is no substitute for quantity time. Without your generous investment of time, there is no chance for the quality time necessary to your soul’s required friendships.

There are numerous enemies of your soul, and time management is a tricky business, especially if you work for others, or thinking specifically about parents, others require your time. Not to sound indifferent, but you are not the first person to have these demands upon you that you endure. You are simply the latest. The spiritual practice of soul friendship remains a fundamental discipline of the faith.  

The wisdom of Scripture, the counsel of those who preceded you, and the life of your Older Brother all bear testimony: It is to the benefit of your heart’s desire to prioritize practicing the spiritual disciplines, including the time necessary to acquire, practice, and benefit from soul friendship.

Now, let’s look the tiger square in the eye: The greatest impediment to practicing this particular discipline, is the device in your pocket or purse.

On average, people tap, swipe, or click their smartphone 2600 times per day. Over 70% of us sleep with our device. Depending on age, we send/receive between 70 and 110 texts per day and respond to each within 1-2 minutes.

Each time your device displays an image or notification, your brain is rewarded with dopamine, the same chemical that converts cocaine users into addicts. Around 50% of smartphone users believe they are addicted to their device—and the studies do not disagree.

Nomophobia is now a recognized mental illness: fear of being without a connected device. Since the advent of the smartphone in 2007, our attention span has degraded to eight seconds.

This means that every eight seconds, you are distracted while attempting to read your Bible, reflect, rest, be silent, or practice solitude. Every eight seconds, your worship is interrupted and your prayer derailed. Time with your friend is marginalized by your inability to pay attention, your compulsion to reach for your device, or your preference for the screen versus the person across from you.

Consider the ambitious aspiration of knowing God and understanding His mind. Contrast this against the allure of your device and other lifestyle demands. Ask yourself: Which of these fulfills the desire of my heart?

The practice of the spiritual disciplines puts you in position to realize your heart’s desire, and the practice of soul friendship leverages your ability to realize your heart’s desire sooner, and in more grandeur, than if you approach life alone.

Any impediment to your heart’s desire, your devotion, or your ability to dedicate yourself to practice your spiritual disciplines is a spiritual distraction.

The practice of soul friendship is perhaps the most variable of the disciplines in that it is the only practice of the twelve that depends upon another person. Therefore, it is the most difficult discipline to manage and develop.

This said, there is profound consolation: Scripture states that God spoke with Moses as a friend and reminds us that Abraham was the friend of God. Like His first-born Son, our heavenly Father values friendship—our friendship.

For all the fickleness of building soul-degree friends during this life, there is readiness in God to make us the friend of His soul in exchange for us making Him our soul friend.

How does soul friendship work?  

“You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him,” wrote Lewis.

The disciples learned, grasped, and loved Jesus and the way He lived. They each, and each in his eccentricities, became a unique friend, a true compadre, a soul friend. By being Jesus’ friend, each became aware of character qualities otherwise unknown to them, and possessed of such grit as to offer up his life as a reasonable respect for the friendship between their souls, they each did so.

But the disciples were not the only beneficiaries of soul friendship.

Jesus surrounded Himself with friends because He knew that as a man, He needed the benefit of trusted-others.

In a profound and remarkable turn, Jesus lived more fully, demonstrated grace more compellingly, walked with God more meaningfully, grew as an individual more robustly, progressed in His humanity more passionately, and flourished as a human being because of the contribution His soul-level friends made in His life.  

Soul friends: Bonded. Sharing. Eating and drinking. Singing, struggling, celebrating, arguing, laboring, meditating, grieving, fighting together if they must, confessing, serving, loving, and doing so together.

This is the design and desire of God. He planted the same desire within you and designed practices to help you realize your desire. The practice of soul friendship accelerates your advancement.   

Next up, and last in the series: The spiritual practice of service. Until then, keep your wits about you.