I can’t wait for camp! I’ve been doing this gig for the last 22 years, the first 11 as a camper. The last 11 of those years I’ve spent serving as a cabin leader, teacher, room inspector, song leader, program director, activities director, PDA patrolman, AV guy, snipe-hunting tour guide, etc., etc., etc. You’d think this song-and-dance would get old after a while, but I still love it. And so do you. Admit it.
I have been thinking a bit lately about relationships. Not romantic relationships, but those with the people that you do life with… kids in your youth group, kids from your school, your family, teachers, coaches, etc. Those relationships are always amped up on the power of about 20 Red Bulls and half a dozen cold showers when they are subjected to a week of bible camp. Those days at camp are defining moments for a lot of kids and their relationships with other people. They bring out the best… and worst… in all of us. Sometimes more of the latter than the former.
I just got done reading an article called “Difficult friends: In what ways does befriending someone whom you find it difficult to like bring you closer to God?” (If you want to read the article, click here)
It got me thinking about what I would call “Un-friendables”. We all have ‘em. And at camp, they’re everywhere! It’s the boy who smells of vinegar and stale pizza who asks out every girl on campus (and by the end of the week, some poor, nutrient-deprived girl, in a state of hallucination and mental instability and hopped up on hairspray fumes, gives in to his advances and agrees to be his camp girlfriend for about 3 hours before she comes to her senses.) It’s the girl who never showers. It’s the kid who talks nonstop about his favorite TV shows like they were real life (as if he himself was actually born on an episode of LOST.) It’s the person who is always starting arguments and getting into fights, making drama for everybody. Let’s get real… there are people at camp you would want to be friends with. And then there are… “UNFRIEND-ABLES”. You’re bound to meet some at camp in a couple of weeks, so if you are reading this, I hope you can take this to heart.
We all know what “Un-friendables” are like. They’re annoying, overbearing, smell funny, talk funny, and get on our nerves. I remember a kid that used to ride my bus when I was little… his name was Jacob. I don’t know what disease he had, but whatever it was, it stunted his growth, and he was always smaller than the other kids. He wore glasses as thick as saucers and had a squeaky voice with a speech impediment that made “Screech” from Saved by the Bell sound like Michael Buble. I remember Jacob once showing me his watch that had a built-in calculator in it. One time, he was supposed to perform a rap song for the Middle School talent show, and he lost the cassette tape that he was supposed to sing to, so he got up in front of the whole school and rapped a capella. The sound was so bad, and his speech impediment made the words so unrecognizable, I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself in it for the embarrassment this kid was putting himself through. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he forgot the words half way through the song!
I remember being Jacobs friend a while when I was younger… but after we got into Middle School, the more I got to know him, the more annoying he became, and as I saw how the other kids picked on him, I started to shy away from my friendship with him, so I wouldn’t catch any of the shrapnel of the constant barrages of ridicule that he received. Jacob grew older, took hormone medicine for his stunted growth, and the older he grew, the more bitter and unsettled he became. Jacob’s life was one with no friends. In High School, he committed suicide. His Senior yearbook contained a full page memorial for him, that said something like “We miss you, Jacob.” I always wonder if, maybe, it shouldn’t have also read, “we’re sorry”.
To this day, I can’t help but think “is there something I could have done? If I had continued to extend my friendship to Jacob when we were young, would he still be alive today?” I can’t know the answer to that now. It’s too late. But it taught me something about the incredible weight of relationships, and the urgency to extend our friendship to “unfriendables”.
As we’re getting ready for youth camp, I want to throw a few thoughts at you about these “Unfriendables”. There are going to be plenty of them at camp, and I want you to be prepared. What do you do when you come into contact with the people who scare you, annoy you, challenge you, argue with you, get on your nerves, and make it hard to be there friends?
Control Freak!
Generally, we seem to make friends with the people that we like… people that we share interests with, whose personality is appealing to us, who have traits that we admire, people we want to be like, or people who make us laugh (or who laugh at our corny jokes). In short, we like being in control of who our friends are, and we pick them carefully. When things get too uncomfortable for us, we tend to find someone that is familiar to us, with similar likes and interests. Does that make us a control freak? Mmm… maybe. It’s good to have friends that we really like and enjoy being with. But what about these “unfriendables”? Do we have a responsibility? If you’re a Christian, then I say… yes.
It’s a God thing
This is exactly what Jesus came to do. To befriend the friendless, to be a hope for those who have no hope (and even those that THINK they do). To offer the love of God to anyone who is willing to lay down their own lives and receive it freely.
When I was in 5th grade, we had a new girl in our class. She lived only a few blocks from my house, so I started hanging out with her, both in school, and out of school. But the longer she was there, the more I realized that the other boys thought she was ugly, and the girls thought she was skanky. I realized that I was getting into a friendship that could tarnish my reputation (which was already at the bottom of the totem pole.) So I approached her one day and said “you know, we’re friends on all, but maybe from now on, let’s just be secret friends. She agreed, and we went on our way. Let’s be honest: secret friends meant not friends at all. I don’t think I ever talked to her in public again after that, let alone in private. I was later hit by the hypocrisy of my deed when another friend of mine approached me just a few days later and said “Jerrod, from now on, let’s be secret friends.” Ouch. I felt the sting of what I had done to the new girl.
Face it: Once upon a time, you were an unfriendable. You were, what the bible calls, an “enemy of God.” You were bent on your own desires, and making yourself happy. But you were exposed to the gospel (perhaps even at camp!), and for the first time, you heard about a God that not only created you, but who loves you in spite of your annoying tendency to rebel and sin against Him. In fact, you are still learning to this day how to lay down your life, take up your cross, and follow Him. You’re still learning, and on your bad days, let’s face it… as far as God is concerned, you are an unfriendable. And yet He still befriends you. And at no time has God ever turned around and said “we’re friends and all… but from now on, maybe, let’s just be secret friends.” He is not ashamed to call you His child, His friend. That’s gospel. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
So if that’s how God has loved us, then we are called and challenged to befriend others in the same way. The unfriendables are your mission field. They are those who simply need another human being to befriend them, to show them some Christ-like love and attention. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.”
Not only that… but maybe you need to be challenged a little. Maybe your comfort zone is a little too comfortable. You stick with the familiar. You go with friends that make you comfortable. Maybe you need someone who is a bit DIFFERENT, to challenge the way you view the world. It can make you a better gospel-bearer by spending time with someone who has some different ideas than you.
It’s a FOREVER Thing
C.S. Lewis wrote a book called “The Weight of Glory”. Okay, I admit, I’ve never read the book, but I like to read quotes from it. (…And if anyone has the book sitting on their book shelf somewhere, collecting cobwebs and spider poop, feel free to loan it out!) The book begins with this very sobering statement: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”
Think about that a moment. Every human being you come into contact with is not a mere mortal, but someone who is going to live forever… somewhere. Their eternity will be either discovering who God truly made them to be - in heaven with Christ - or it will be forever thinking only of themselves, blaming other people for their plight, and selfishly pitying their existence - in hell. You have never talked to a person who will only live for a few years and then disappear into the ground. They will go on forever. Somewhere.
I remember sitting in a Chinese restaurant with my nieces, and as the Chinese waitress waited our table and returned to the kitchen to bring us drinks and silverware, I turned to one of my nieces and pointed out, “have you thought about how the woman who is waiting our table… will live for eternity, either with God in heaven, or by herself in hell?” My niece responded, “No, I guess I hadn’t thought of that.” It’s easy to forget that the people we are surrounded by are not mortal, but immortal, and therefore deserve our utmost respect. Lewis puts it this way, it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
Think about it: In eternity, every human who has ever lived will be either an immortal horror (in hell) or an everlasting splendor (in heaven).
“Unfriendables” are immortals, just like you. When you relate to them, when you snub them, avoid them, politely dismiss their company, you are doing such to people who were made to live FOREVER… somewhere. And while God knows where they will end up, it could be that He has put you in a position to be the kind of gospel-living person that oozes with God’s love in such a way that they will be exposed to the gospel by the way you treat them… and embark on a relationship with Christ themselves. God is calling you to be the instrument he uses to mold another person’s life, and nudge them into eternity of hysterical glory, with Christ!
That may not mean that they will cease to be awkward, smelly, drama-queenish, and a touch unfriendable for a while, maybe even for the rest of their lives - in this life anyway. But honestly… do we really have the luxury, as Christians, of picking who we befriend based on criteria of our own comfort and taste, and pitching the rest out the window like a stale french fry that we found under the car seat? Or don’t we have the responsibility to do for others what Christ did for us, to reach out with friendship to those who are hard to be friends with? To be friends to the “unfriendables”?
Let’s get serious: There is no relationship that we can afford to take lightly. This is a forever thing.
One more Lewis quote: The load, or weight, or burden, of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humilitycan carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.
Is pride keeping you from befriending the unfriendables? Will it take a bit of humbling in order for you to be like Christ in the way you handle relationships? Maybe it’s time to stop trying to be GOD over your relationships, and let Christ’s love compel you into relationships that you might not have normally stumbled into on your own. Consider the cost Christ paid in order to bring you eternal friendship with God. How humbling it must have been for the Son of God to leave glory of his high position in heaven to come down to earth and die for sinful, annoying, unfriendable you. He came to make you friendable again. And He did it out of love. If God did this for you… are you willing to extend that same love to others in your life? It’s your calling. You are not your own anymore… you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body… and be a friend.
(Want more C.S. Lewis quotes? Click here)
(Want to help me come up with ideas for camp games? Click here)
