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| Photo by Derek Mindler |
No one really opens up anymore. Because we don't have to. Instead, we can just choose to zone out, use our smartphones, watch Netflix.
We can choose to live the deepest part of our lives completely alone.
And many of us have. I know I've made that choice on plenty of occasions.
It's normal these days to live our deepest lives alone, and just show the fake surface to our friends. Why? Because "opening up" has been dubbed as something weak people do. So instead, we hide.
We hide in the dark, by ourselves at night in our bed, without any rational person's voice to challenge Satan's whisperings.
"You're pathetic. You'll never be good enough."
"Why can't you be more like her? Then maybe you'd have what she has."
"Don't tell anyone. Deal with this by yourself like a big boy. Everyone else does."
Let me tell you something.
You are being lied to.
Many of the things your inner accuser says aren't even true. But you'll never know that unless you begin to open up about them. And that's why I've compiled a short list of four big reasons why opening up is extremely important to your ministry, community, and spiritual life.
4 Reasons to Open Up to Your Friends
1. It makes you stronger. Opening up feels like it makes you weak... but trust me, it doesn't. In my mind, there's a thought that I'll become a weakling if I open up. But every single time I've opened up, it's made me much stronger, resolved, and clear in my thinking. It's simply a good decision. Learn to think of opening up less like wussing out...and more like working out.
2. It not only makes you stronger, but it makes your friends stronger too. When you open up about your struggles, your friends realize it's okay to struggle themselves. Everyone struggles. Let's stop pretending that some of us don't! Hearing about your problems helps your friends grasp, own, and overcome their problems. You strengthen everyone along with you when you open up. The Bible uses the picture of "iron sharpening iron" to describe two people opening up to each other. Everyone gets sharper when true struggles are brought to the light.
3. People start believing lies when they're alone. Isolation is a huge factor in our pain, sin, and hurt... and in the lies we believe. When we're not listening to any voices of reason, we start to listen to that voice that beats us up when we're by ourselves in our beds at night, wondering why we don't measure up. But listening to a friend gives you another voice, one that can tell you if what you're believing about yourself is true or not.
4. You get closer to people you care about. And when community is strengthened... you get to understand your friends better...and have much deeper, meaningful relationships in your life. Who doesn't want that?
Yes, we live in a world of increasing isolation. But we don't have to settle for it. We can choose to open the door to the community we were made for.
But we truly have to choose it. We actually have to take a step forward.
Crack the door of your heart open to someone you trust. And don't be surprised when the blessings built up on the other side tumble into your life like an overstuffed closet.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 - "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up."
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