How to Make Friends

6 · Oswald applies the Lewis quotation to direct instruction: the first step in friendship formation is sincere prayer, trusting God's sovereignty to orchestrate relationships

And so this speaks to obviously the sovereignty of God and God's providential working to provide you with friends. And that's something that starts with asking God, just saying, God, I would like some friends and to sincerely ask him and pray him, pray to him for them.

7 · Oswald identifies the two errors Christians fall into when pursuing good desires: quietism (passivity disguised as faith) and pragmatism (godless technique)

So from the aura we go to the labora, the work. And this, I think, is really where people struggle, and not only in the issue of friends. A lot of Christians tend to. They tend to bounce back and forth between two ditches. And the one ditch you might Call quietism. What is quietism? Well, quietism is actually like a thing. It's actually like a formal, like a theology, I suppose you could say. But it could be summarized in the sort of let go and let God. It sort of eschews human effort. It has a way of painting all human effort as effort in your own strength. If they were consistent with their quietism, they would never have any bread. They'd just eat the wheat kernels. I mean, they'd have to pick those. So I'm not sure how that would work. So people tend to bounce between quietism and pragmatism. And you can just say pragmatism is just an over emphasis on what you do. I'm guessing that some people who are listening to this podcast would know about pickup artists and that whole thing. And, you know, this all happened after I was. Gosh, I'd probably already been married 20 years when this started to become a thing. But, you know, it's super dark, in my opinion, and full of sinful sort of practices. What that really is is just essentially forgetting, pretending I don't need God and I don't have God, but I want to get. I want to have sex. Okay, if there's no God and God's not for me, but I want to have sex, how do I get that done? That would be a really good example of really stark pragmatism. On the other hand, there's stuff in the middle. You know, a book like how to Win Friends and Influence People has some pragmatism in it that I would not recommend. But there's also enough in a book like that that might be worth reading. The point is, is that if you want something in this life, you have to ask God for it. You have to assume that assuming it's lawful God is for you. And then you got to do the work.

8 · Oswald introduces the central metaphor shift: from "finding friends" (passive foraging) to "friendship farming" (active cultivation)

I'm going to start talking about friendship as friendship farming. And the reason that I want to talk about it that way is I really, really want to get away from what I think is the most default understanding of friendship. And that would be finding friends.

9 · Oswald develops the foraging vs

So you could have friendship foraging, or you could have friendship finding. You ever hunted mushrooms? I figured something out about this. So first of all, I love wild morel mushrooms. I remember one time you're going to go along. I'm feeling very attention deficity today. So you're going to go along for some rides. Watching this, listening to this. I remember one time when I first started preaching here in Kansas City. And then, you know, I would drive back to St. Louis, because I still live there. And it was. It was in the spring, so it was pretty close to when I was going to move here. Anyway, I drove along I70 all the way back through Missouri, and it was just like the right day for hunting mushrooms. And I remember this was so cool. I trained myself as I drive. I always scan the edges of the woods because that's where you see deer, especially at particular times of the day. Anyway, I'm looking on the edges, and I just would kind of get closer to a town, but I still wouldn't be in the town anyway. I would just see people walking out in the woods along I70. And it's real rural out there in the middle of Missouri. And they were foraging for mushrooms anyway, so that's a side thing. All right. So what I'm getting at is that my sense is that the playground model, the childhood model of friendship is mostly kind of like foraging. You just kind of maybe even aren't completely looking. It just kind of happens. Kids have so much free time and so little guile. They're so open to trust and so forth. It's really just sort of like finding a friend fits perfectly when you're a kid. That seems to be a good way to talk about it, because that seems like. Yep, I think that's what we're doing is we're finding friends. Well, what I want to suggest is that in the end, there's a pivot that happens in adulthood, and we just can't live the foraging lifestyle any longer. When it comes to stuff that's important, we have to create systems. We have to create habits that produce outcomes reliably, over and over and over again. One of my favorite quotes from the book Atomic Habits is, you know, you don't really rise to the level of goals, your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And so I wanted, if I could do one thing, kind of a paradigm shift for people who are having trouble making friends, I would want to point them toward get out of the mindset of finding friends and get into the mindset of farming friends. Create a system, a way of approaching people and life, and that will reliably, over and over and over again, produce friends. Put the work, put the responsibility on your intentionality, and develop a lifestyle that is consistent with the developing of friends. Trying to think of Bible verses, one just popped to mind. I know there are at least a number of times when. when we're told to make friends. Trying to think, if I could think of any, that talk about Finding a friend. Anyway, my commendation to you, if you're struggling with friends, is, first of all, let's be done with the blame thing. Second of all, let's ora Elabora this sucker. Let's pray, let's ask God for help, and let's also figure out a system. Let's start moving away from friendship. Just kind of randomly happens. It's a magical thing. Let's build a system.

10 · Oswald anchors the friendship farming metaphor in Scripture by introducing the parable of the sower as a framework for understanding the outcomes of friendship efforts

So what does that system look like? Well, it really looks a lot like farming in the sense that it's just a lot of dead ends, a lot of things that don't work out. And even the stuff that does work out doesn't necessarily stick. And sometimes the things that you get excited about wind up breaking your heart. And meanwhile, the stuff that's really going to pay off takes a long time to pay off. So I've lived a while on this earth and have had to think through some of this stuff. I have not had, you know, I've not had some of the disadvantages that some folks have. Like, I. I haven't been. I've been fairly emotionally intelligent. I haven't, you know, I wasn't born with or grew into like an Asperger's type situation or something like that. But I have had to think about this a little bit because of moving and, you know, different schools and so on and so forth. And also it's kind of my job to try to grow in friendship in general, which I still feel like I need to do so much better than I do. But anyway, in all of that, I've realized, like, yeah, it's just this is really more of a system. It's really more like farming than foraging. So a big principle there. Once we kind of decide that's true. I think it's true. Once we decide that's true, then we've got actually quite a bit of biblical data to go by. Because once we get into the farming analogy. The farming metaphor. Yeah, there's a lot of verses about that and a lot of principles that we can apply. And the first one is, whoever sows sparingly, reaps so sparingly, right. Or don't grow weary in doing good. This is Galatians 6. For you will reap a harvest if you don't give up. So the idea that I first want to commend to you is we've prayed and asked God. We've taken responsibility for a system. And what does that system look like? Well, that system really looks like friendliness. And it's a habitual daily practice of being friendly to others. Now, what do we mean by friendliness? Well, on Sunday we talked about the definition of friendship, so let's start there. The definition of friendship would be something like a friend is a person willing to invest themselves in your good. Friend is a person willing to invest themselves in your good. Okay, let's say that's what friend is. Well then what does it mean to be friendly? It would mean to sort of indicate either with smaller gestures across a wider context of social interactions. It would be kind of an indication, a posturing of your willingness to do that for them. Essentially what you're doing, and I think of it as like sowing friendship seeds. Essentially what you're doing is you're sending signals out by what you're asking and what you're talking about that indicates to them that you're not self absorbed, that you are interested in them, that you're interested in them to the degree that you would be interested in potentially investing in them. It can sometimes just mean little acts of service. One of the things that I've tried to train myself over the years gears is to pick up trash in the parking lot or put a cart away, or hold the door open, smile at people when I see them, and so on and so forth. And that's making me increasingly weird, by the way, in the eyes of others. I really have definitely reached the point where I don't care. I'm convinced I'm right. But to be a friend is to invest yourself in someone else's good. So to be friendly is to sort of send out sincere vibes to others that you have that figured out that you know how to be a friend and that you're interested in investing yourself in them, so on and so forth. Now what happens from there? Well, what happens from there, man? Your mileage may vary, as they say. We can go to another Bible passage that I think is actually really good to think about. And when it comes to any time you're or ET laboring, whenever you decide to stop blaming others and try to do something about what you'd like to see happen in your life, this parable in Matthew 13 I think is pretty good. I think it's a pretty good way to sort of understand how the next chapter of this renewed effort will unfold. So, okay, so you've got this idea of like, let's sow what I want. I'm going to sow seeds of friendliness. To reap a friendship. Okay, well, that's good. That's one of the early steps. Let's say you start doing that. What happens then? All right, so let me read Matthew 13, 3, 9 to you. This is Jesus telling the parable of the sower. And he told them many things in parables, saying, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell among the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up. Since they had no depth of soil, when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some 100, some 60, some 30. He who has ears, let him hear.

11 · Oswald explicitly applies the parable of the sower to friendship formation, warning that the first outcome of intentional friendship efforts will be rejection and failure

All right, what does that have to do with friendship? Well, it has to do with anything. It honestly just has to do with the decision to, like, follow God into some project that requires ora et labora when it comes to your effort. This parable will really give you the proper perspective to understand what's going to happen after you start trying to. And what's going to happen is that you're immediately going to be met with failure.

12 · Oswald steps outside the exposition to pastorally acknowledge that God sometimes grants grace-bypasses of struggle, but warns that most people will experience the full pattern of rejection before seeing fruit

Now, I'm generalizing. Sometimes this almost brings a tear to my eye. Sometimes God is just super nice to you, and he doesn't make you go through honestly what everybody has to go through. Sometimes you just get a pass. You probably won't. I don't usually. Maybe you will, and if so, just be happy. But for the most part, whenever you really start getting after something and you start sowing seeds, whether that be seeds of friendliness or start sowing seeds of obedience in some area or giving or whatever. Anytime you start sowing seeds, what you need to understand is the first seeds that you will notice are the ones that get eaten by the birds.

13 · Oswald illustrates the "seeds eaten by birds" reality with a personal anecdote about his backyard, making the abstract parable concrete: initial efforts will be met with immediate rejection and non-reciprocation

Birds have a way of appearing out of nowhere when they see seed. My backyard's getting super patchy, and I do not want to do all the work necessary to fix that, especially with the dog that just loves to gallop. But I was thinking the other day, I was like, man, it would be so nice if, you know, I could just throw a bunch of seed out there because the ground's so soft. But, you know, sure enough, well, first thing you do, when you do that, there's be birds appear and they'll pick up a lot of those seeds. So when you start making an effort, pretty good chance the first thing you'll see is rejection. You just flat out anti reciprocation, perhaps even

14 · Oswald expounds the second soil type from the parable — shallow, rocky ground that produces rapid but rootless growth

the next thing that could happen in, in the idea of this parable is that you may see some early success that appears to be too good to be true. And it will turn out to be too good to be true. You will, you, you might, you might have some early bites on the line and suddenly now you think you have a friend. Well, in the parable of the soil, the first bunch of seeds, they get eaten by the birds, which are representative of Satan. And then the second batch that blooms is actually the batch that doesn't have any roots. So a seed has so much energy to expend before it has to get more energy from the sun. And the first expenditure of energy that a seed exerts is to go down into the soil. But if the soil is super rocky, it can only go so far and so it will shoot up. So the first, the first production you wind up seeing from an effort is often a false flag. It often winds up being kind of hollow victories. The problem knowing that is good because the problem is that the next thing that happens is disappointment. You've made this effort, you've seen some rejection, and then you saw some success. And that rejection made you think like, yay, finally it's working. And then you find out, no, this didn't work either.

15 · Oswald illustrates the shallow-soil person with a lengthy anecdote about a neighbor who excelled briefly at many hobbies but lacked depth

You'll think that very often there can be people who are like this in their lives. And so when you meet those people, they're almost kind of eager early adopters to lots of things. And they have no root, they have no depth, and so they might seem effusively happy to be your friend or you guys might, there might be a bromance that emerges. But in the end, I think I try not to pay too much attention to all the like narcissism stuff that gets spread around people that are just fundamentally incapable of self examination and understanding that most people that talk about narcissism are narcissists. So I try not to pay attention to that, but sometimes I do. And you hear this concept of love bombing as if it was some kind of strategy or pathology. It's like, no, these people just don't have any depth. And, and so they sprout up, they don't grow down, there's nowhere inside to go. So love bombing isn't typically some kind of manipulative tactic. It's just what shallow people do. They're excited about lots of things. I had a neighbor I don't want to Dishonor him. He's passed, but he's about my parents age and this guy was capable of doing anything crazily well for about a month. And he didn't just pick hobbies, he excelled at hobbies. This guy was crazy. This is just a fantastic human being in the sense of someone to marvel at. He got really into taekwondo and breaking bricks. And I think maybe he did it for a year. I don't know, it wasn't very long. And then the next thing I know, he's on national TV breaking the world record of breaking bricks. He got into snakes and started raising pythons in his house. And I remember feeding him, feeding live rabbits, you know, to these pythons. Super into that. Got super into baseball cards and just all sorts of things. So that's kind of, you know, that you'll meet people like that and you'll think, I made a friend. It's like, no, you found a flake. And that's okay because that's just part of the process.

16 · Oswald completes the parable exposition by noting the third soil type (choked by cares) and the fourth (good soil)

Jesus says that there's another kind of soil seed situation and that is, you know, it's going okay, but then it gets choked out by the cares of life. And sometimes you'll meet people that are, you know, there's a legitimacy to their sincerity and so on and so forth, but they're busy, they're not thinking about maybe the most important things. They're not putting them first. And so you'll may see some success there. And you'll think, and then we get to the final category, which are the successful friendships that take root. And here's the thing you need to understand, by this time you're exhausted. You saw the one group, you saw some of your efforts just go completely rejected. You saw a second group that was like, hey, this looks like something, and it turned out to be nothing. You saw a third group, hey, this looks like something. And that turned out to be nothing. And by this time you're like, okay, this is all stupid. I'm out. I'm going to stop trying. Because what's really going on is there is fruit that's going to happen.

17 · Oswald applies Galatians 6:9 to friendship formation, emphasizing that genuine fruit grows invisibly during a long season of unrewarded work

This is Galatians 6 again. We will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Don't grow weary in doing good. So what'll happen is you've just gotten so done with this at this point that you're ready to be done. And yet some of the work you've been doing this whole time, it just hasn't been appearing to you. But something has been happening. Well, maybe you stick in the game long enough where you realize, oh wait, I see some green over there. And you come out the next day and you're like, oh, I see, I see quite a bit of green right now, huh? Is it possible that some of these seeds were growing and I didn't realize, but here's the thing about that. You have to endure a whole season, literally a whole season where there's no reciprocity between you and your crop. You've planted the seeds and all it is is more work. You got to water them, you got to weed them, you got to keep the birds away and so on and so forth. And it takes all this time to even get a harvest. And lots of people give up on friendships before that period of time.

18 · Oswald applies the entire sermon's argument directly to the listener: develop a system of sowing friendship seeds, expect rejection and false starts, and persevere through the discouraging invisible-growth season by trusting the ora et labora process

And so I guess I'm trying to talk to you and I'm going to go because I'm noticing that. Well, hold on one second. Oh, okay. I'm supposed to meet a couple of my, well, my son and one of my son in laws tonight, so I didn't want to miss that. I saw them texting. Anyway, the thing I notice is that when people engage in any system, and I suppose that this podcast is really just about system work in general, when people engage in the obedience of sewing, they really can get pretty easily dissatisfied, discouraged, and quit. So I wanted to present that idea of farming because it's like, okay, you need to go out and sow a bunch of friendship seeds. What is a friendship seed? Is some kind of indication whether by the questions you ask, the time you spend with them, the way you pay attention in a conversation that you are interested in investing in them. Sometimes you'll immediately see like they're not interested in you. Other times it will look like it's going to pay off and turn out not to pay off. And then even the people who are sincerely open to being your friend, that's just going to take more patience and time. And so you really have to believe in the process, the aura and the labora.

19 · Oswald synthesizes the sermon's argument: stop blaming, take responsibility, develop a whole-life system, work it patiently, and trust God to produce fruit in His timing

So that's one thing I wanted to bring up to you in this series on friendship and I wanted to just, I wanted to kind of communicate. Okay, if you are struggling with friends, stop blaming others, take responsibility. Develop a system that is kind of whole life that you're always working just like a farmer's always working. And then just be patient and just keep at it and trust that the Lord will provide for you. Thinking of another story that Jesus tells where he says the kingdom of God is like a farmer who plants a seed and then goes to sleep. And the earth nurtures the seed, and it grows. The farmer knows not how, and then he eventually harvests it. Well, that's life. Figure out the right system, work it, and at some point down the road, God will bless your efforts again. Galatians 6. Therefore, do not grow weary in doing good. We will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

20 · Oswald closes by inviting listeners to share the podcast, reiterating the core paradigm shift (friend forager to friend farmer), and noting that no one typically teaches this transition in young adulthood

All right, well, that's installation number one. Is there anybody you could share this with that would maybe benefit from this? I don't know how you would even do that. I would hope that it's not awkward, but I would encourage you to consider that even if you're not sharing this, it's not clear to me at any point in young adulthood that someone sits down and tells you how to make friends. That isn't essentially, it's not clear to me that anyone sits down and says, hey, the recess model doesn't work anymore. You can't be a friend forager. You can't be a friend finder. You have to be a friend maker, friend farmer. So this would be a good conversation, perhaps, to have with someone who's frustrated with their social life and social life. By social life, I also include romantic life. All right, well, be well. I hope this was helpful to someone, and we'll come back again, I guess, in a day or so and talk more about friendship. Be well.