Friendship for Mature Adults
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Romans 12:13
Aging has its ups and downs. Gaining experience and (hopefully) wisdom is an “up.” Making friends becomes much harder (a “down”).
One of the truths of our culture is that people move. Work, family, climate preferences, and all kinds of personal reasons can motivate us to look for a new location. Unfortunately, a lot of the relationships we develop do not go with us. Or, we are the ones staying behind.
Family members, doctors, co-workers, church family, and friends either stay or go somewhere different. So, though it seems odd to think about, making friends at an older age is a real issue.
Facebook and Twitter are not enough for those of us who grew up in a face-to-face culture.
For the Christian, making new friends can be more difficult because we want our closest friends to share our beliefs (Proverbs 12:26). (We can certainly have unbelieving friends but they won’t be as close.) We expect that if we find a “good” church, we will find friends. That may be true. It has not been the experience of everyone.
If the population is stable, many “mature” people have their friends and are (I believe unwittingly) unwilling to invite others into their intimate friendships. There seems to be more opportunity when moving into a community that is more transient (like retirement homes).
Rather than a state of despair or a fatalistic, “I guess it wasn’t meant to be for me to have friends,” I want to suggest a more proactive approach.
Hospitality. You may have heard me suggest this before.
Don’t wait to be invited but invite. There are many lonely Christians in the world.
“A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity,” Proverbs 17:17 (ESV). In other versions this verse says, “A friend always loves, and a brother is born to share trouble” (GWT) and “A friend shows his friendship at all times — it is for adversity that [such] a brother is born” (CJB).
This verse tells us that a good friend is for times of trouble. That pain, sorrow, and other kinds of life’s trauma will not separate good friends; in fact, they are God’s gift for such occasions.
This makes me wonder, if we looked around our new congregation, not for that person or couple who look like they have it all together, but are willing to approach the one who looks like they need someone to help them, would a friendship be born from adversity?
The Bible suggests that we can see a troubled time in a person’s countenance (Psalm 42:11). The same verse suggests that God is the one to bring health to that downcast person’s countenance.
What if He would use you to minister to that downcast soul? A simple invitation to share a meal or some time together may be an act of love and encouragement to someone in need.
Win/win.
Are we willing to be the one to extend the invitation or will we wait and complain that no one is inviting us?