Christian Friendship Can Make You Smarter – Who Knew?
There are many benefits of relationships that make conscious, deliberate cultivation of Christian friendship worthwhile. Friendship leads us to the enlightenment of intimacy. It also gives us much needed support in life. Another wonderful benefit of friendship is the help that other people give us in making judgments about our lives. Relationships can greatly improve our lives.
Sounding Boards for Truth
Most of us lack confidence in the decisions we make. We naturally seek validation and affirmation from other people. But this lack of confidence is actually a healthy thing. In our quest for truth, it’s good to want to check our own theories and ideas against others. Friends give us the ability to compare our opinions with other opinions, to amend our points of view in comparison with other points of view. In fact, sometimes when we ask a friend for advice we are really just looking to test our opinions or to use our friend as a sounding board. It doesn’t even really matter if our friend is especially wise or knowledgeable. Just having a sympathetic ear who is willing to listen to us talk out our ideas can do a lot to sharpen our thoughts and help us come up with new insights. This is a great benefit for the development of our intellect. Who knew that friends could make us smarter? A Christian friendship does not hurt this dynamic at all. In fact, since Christians are dedicated to pursuing the truth in all things, good Christian friends can be even more rigorous in helping us find the truth.
My good friend Father James and I love to pass ideas by each other. We’ve plotted out a number of projects together. Most of them have been dead ends. But there was fun and camaraderie and learning just in the planning. We once undertook a project to build a telescope together. The ideas and the creativity that went into that project were just fun. It hardly mattered that in the end, we couldn’t get it to work. OK, it was sort of a let-down. But we both felt we got a lot out of doing that project together.
Christian Friendship Offers Perspective
Another intellectual benefit that our friends offer us is the gift of perspective. A true friend will offer us a valuable outside perspective on our lives. A true friend won’t flatter us or soft-pedal reality for us. True friends tell it like it is. Now, this doesn’t mean that a good friend doesn’t use tact. To be abusive in the name of “honesty” is not authentic love. But to tell a truth that can lead us to grow in holiness, even if that truth may hurt our self-esteem, is the kind of tough love that true Christian friendship allows for.
Don’t Sell Intellectual Benefits Short!
Now, these intellectual benefits may seem unimportant when you compare them to the benefits of the heart. But don’t sell them short! While developing the intellect is undervalued in today’s culture, having a healthy intellectual life is an important part of living a fully human life. The quest for truth is part of life’s adventure. And friends make that adventure even more exciting. Consider the difference between a lecture by a dry professional and a lively debate among friends at a coffee shop. Lively, engaging intellectual dialogue is a great joy of friendship.
Fortunately for us, the love of friendship is a skill that we can learn – and learning that skill opens us to the grace of Charity that in turn empowers us to love even more completely. That’s called cooperating with grace.
Brought to you by Jeffrey S. Arrowood at From the Abbey, dedicated to helping you rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.