Bob Goff quotes are so encouraging!

In every friendship, there are mess-ups.

People are inconsiderate, maybe even rude, hurtful, and selfish. And if a friendship has hiccups, which is inevitable, our instincts often want us to be done with that relationship. Crazy right? But frequently true. It’s easy to throw in the towel.

God has been teaching me about being a faithful friend, and if God can do it for me, an introvert with serious trust issues (yikes!), then I know that God can do it for you, too (if this applies to you).

Scripture, my own inability at flawlessness, and Bob Goff’s Twitter and Instagram posts, have all challenged me and helped me to examine my thinking patterns.

And there are certain relationships that mean too much to me, no matter how broken it can get, that I would never be done with – my children and husband, my family, my siblings, my parents.

God has been using these relationships, and everything that I mentioned above, to teach me about friendship – especially about friendship that weathers imperfection, hurt, confusion, and storms.

There’s one friendship in the Bible that always helps me find my way: Jesus and Peter. Jesus was faithful to Peter even after Peter, at Jesus’ darkest hour, fell asleep twice and pretended not knowing him three times. Those are pretty substantial friendship hiccups, but Jesus didn’t reject Peter as a friend (nor did he pretend everything was okay): Jesus response was to make Peter breakfast. I love that.

To read the full story of Jesus’ response, you can go to John 21.

Navigating friendship mess-ups is important, not just for our own lives, but the lives of all those around us, too. And of course, we want to have wisdom and common sense, but wisdom doesn’t look like a judgemental snob or a frightened chicken. Wisdom looks like Jesus, who restores broken friendships and broken hearts.