How to evaluate your adult friendships

Sunday, August 4th marks Friendship Day, a Hallmark holiday to share the strength and love of friendship. These kind of relationships come with time and growth as all parties learn and mature. This makes for a good opportunity to look back over this year and evaluate your friendships.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31a)
Who controls your life?

The affect people have on your life stems from how you allow them to treat you intentionally and unintentionally.  As we strive to navigate through this world and the complexities that exists in it, we coexist amongst imperfect people every day and are faced with our own imperfections. This acknowledgment motivates us to give people, mostly those closest to us the benefit of the doubt from time to time. At the end of the day, how you and I value ourselves is revealed by the company we keep. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  (Galatians 5:9)

“How you and I value ourselves is revealed by the company we keep.”

Who is feeding your soul!?
You cannot love your neighbor, let alone yourself, if your soul isn’t right…

 Here are a couple of self-evaluation questions: How do those who share their problems with you react whenever you share your problems with them? Who’s there for you?

Now that you’ve answered these questions, take an in-depth look at the contents that are being dumped into your life on both a daily and non-daily basis. Are these people’s words, actions and deeds toxic? Now it’s time to expose the toxic and non-toxic people in your life because you are being impacted, but you want to know if it’s in a negative or positive way.

Are these insightful nuggets from (insert person’s name) encouraging me to become a better person, reach my fullest potential and fulfill my God-ordained purpose in life?

After you go through this process for each person in your life, rate how each person is contributing to your growth process. After completing your assessment, you will either leave things the way they are or rearrange the seating chart in your life.

Everyone is not going to like you, including those that portray as if they do.
It is not your responsibility to recruit acceptance …

Are you being transformed by God into the person He created you to become or are you whoever others decide you should be? Ask yourself this very important question: Who are you? You need to know because losing yourself at your own expense so others can feel good about themselves is NOT Biblical!

What resides in the depths of a person’s soul will surface…Are you open to receiving everything God manifests to you about them?

At the end of the day, how you and I love ourselves points to where our foundation lies. Our foundation should never reside in ourselves nor in a specific person. In order to prosper in life, our foundation must be God. He never changes, but He brings about a change! When you have a relationship with God, the love you have for yourself is hard to uproot or rattle because your foundation is solid. Having a God-foundational self-love will cause you to notice things you may not normally pay attention to–here’s what I mean.

Those who are toxic will cause you to become unsettled every time you are in their presence. You’ll begin to hear what others are really saying in their implications and even in-the-midst of their silence. Then there will be times when you will hear God whisper to you; be silent and observe as He reveals people’s hidden feelings towards you. These are not epiphanies nor are they eye-openers, these are God-exposures.

Loving yourself means protecting yourself at all costs…
Self-love only lasts if you have a committed relationship with Christ…

God-exposures are necessary…so are the changes you take afterwards. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. ( Matthew 10:16b ) Protecting yourself from others so you can effectively impact those God brings across your path is vitally important for both your life and theirs. In many instances, Loving your neighbor as yourself will call for you to walk away from your neighbor and not look back so you can fulfill the plans God has for your life and your friendships.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. ( Hebrews 12:1b )

How are you evaluating your friendships as an adult? Share below!