Four Qualities of Close Friendships
Close friendships work when two people have a set of shared values and the desire to build a relationship is a two-way street.
Jesus’ example teaches us that every person should have a Peter, James, and John in their lives. When I think of close friendships, several names come to mind.
I think of my buddy Jesse Fontaine. We were childhood friends and spent countless hours together before my family’s separation pulled us apart. While it would have been easy to set this relationship aside, it’s one we’ve both chosen to keep. The miles have pulled us apart, but we’re still close.
When I moved to Cincinnati in 2004, I became friends with another guy named David Hartkopf. Both of us shared a mutual passion for all things God and hockey. And today, nearly twenty years later, we’re still close and regularly call each other to pray or chat. There is pretty much nothing in my life that David doesn’t know. Along the way, I’ve added a few other names to my inner circle of friends. People like Andrew, Cesar, and JD (I'm leaving a number of names off the list for brevity).
Each of these names represents very different individuals. Andrew works downtown Toronto, doing some important job I can’t ever quite understand. Cesar works with high schoolers and weirdly enjoys working on cars in his spare time. Jesse is now a medical doctor and uses lots of big words. JD is a workout fanatic and I feel my biceps growing just through spending time together.
If close relationships were solely built on shared interests, I’d be a very unhappy man. We’re all very different. But what makes these relationships work is we have a set of shared values and the desire to build a relationship is a two-way street. Personally, I don’t know where I’d be without close friendships.
So, how do you build some of your own?
