More About Friendship

I overheard a bit of conversation at church one day; someone was talking about how a group of girls were talking about ... something ... not deep enough, evidently, because they had been asked how their conversation was edifying (and I don't actually remember the something, only that it was just normal conversation). And there was a book that basically said that any conversation that wasn't about God (or didn't include Him) was a wasted conversation.

Both of those ideas bothered me. Granted, there is a time for deep conversations about deep topics, and granted, God should be such a part of our lives that it shapes our conversations. And we shouldn't keep all friendships surface-level.

If we never talk about deeper ideas, I'm not going to trust you for the big stuff in life, but if all we talk about are the big theological topics, I'm also not going to trust you when I need someone to help with the big thing. Either way, you don't really know me and I don't really know you.

Friendships are not build solely on the big conversations; they're also build on the little things. They're built on conversations over coffee that range from deep and insightful to silly and nonsensical. They're built on tears and laughter, on trust and inside jokes. They're built over building puzzles and watching movies and playing games. They're built on stories and silly texts and late-night conversations. There's a lot of little bits that make up friendships.

The thing is, some surface-level conversations aren't edifying and might not help. On the other hand, a lot of them are useful at building friendships and helping people. Someone might need the conversation to feel out whether they can trust this person, or because it's been a really bad day (week, month, whatever) and big conversations are too big to deal with right then, but the smaller conversations are helpful to keep some perspective and focus, or just to be part of a group without any great demands just now. So yes, those conversations that don't seem edifying enough because they're not spiritual enough just might be edifying someone and you just can't see it.