Posts Tagged ‘friendship’

18 Questions to Ask in an Accountability Friendships

/ Christian in College, College, Friendship / 3 Comments

Do you have a friend that you trust and a friend that would love you through anything? That is the type of friend you want to hold you accountable. I encourage you to seek out a friend and set intentional time to ask each other questions about life and spirituality. This is the friend who has always been there for you through hard times, helps you wrestle with specific sins, asks you how you are doing and really wants to know, prays for you and will always speak God’s truth to you in love.

What is an accountability friendship?

Accountability Friendship: Friends who agree to hold each each other accountable to God’s standards for their lives. This includes talking or meeting with someone you trust regularly, reporting where you are spiritually and answering questions. True accountability is not forced. True accountability is chosen.

What does the Bible say about accountability friendships?

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” – James 5:16.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” – Proverbs 27:17.

Once you find a friend to hold you accountable, you will need a method to keep each other accountable. For my friend and I, we have found that taking the time to answer specific questions with each other keeps us on track. It is easy for the conversation to go off track, so I have created questions to help you stay focused. Asking and answering questions with your friend is one of the key parts of accountability friendships.

The questions aren’t to make you feel guilty about your struggles, but to help you see where you are spiritually, where you have room to grow, and where a friend can join beside you to help you thrive.

To help you start this process, I’m providing 4 categories of questions to ask in your friendship. Each category has corresponding questions.

Questions to Ask in an Accountability Friendship

Relational – how are your friendships, family relationships, etc?

  1. Are you surrounding yourself with other believers?
  2. Are you bitter over past conflict?
  3. Are you pouring into others spiritually?
  4. Are you busy comparing your relationships to others?
  5. How is your communication with friends and family?
  6. Are you in conflict and who do you need to forgive?

Purity – are you living a God-honoring life?

  1. Are you setting up boundaries to protect you from impurity?
  2. Are you struggling with sexual sin? (Read how to find freedom.)
  3. Are your thoughts, words and actions bringing God glory?

Relationship with God – are you growing closer to God?

  1. How is your prayer life?
  2. How are your quiet times going?
  3. Have you been sharing your faith with others? (Learn how to share your faith respectfully.)
  4. Have you been journalling? (Read the importance of journalling.)
  5. How is ministry going?

Self – are you taking care of yourself?

  1. Do you love yourself?
  2. How are you doing with body image struggles?
  3. Are you living a healthy lifestyle and taking care of God’s temple?
  4. How is your mental health?

At the end of the conversation, my friend always asks me – did you lie to any of these questions?
We both giggle in response, but this provides one more opportunity to share anything that needs to be shared with your accountability friend.

Remember, this is an example list of questions. Feel free to change it to relate to your specific sin and heart issues within your accountability friendship.

Do you have any other questions to ask in accountability friendships? Comment them below!

When You Lose Your Friends because of Your Beliefs

/ Bible Study, Christian in College / 4 Comments

When you've lost your friends and feel alone. Since starting college, I have lost a few really good friends because of my faith. Both of them told me we could not be friends because my beliefs did not match up with their beliefs. This is something that is incredibly hard to hear. Even though the Bible warns us that we will lose friends and people won’t like us, it is hard to have someone you love turn their back on you.

Here are 5 lessons I took away from both experiences and from the story of Joseph:

1) God’s plans are still perfect even though we might not understand them.

Early in the story of Joseph, his brothers desert him. Essentially, Joseph loses the only friends he knows. In that moment, Joseph had no idea how God would use the pain of being deserted for his glory. We may not understand why losing a friend is part of God’s plan, but we can put our trust in God and believe that good things will come out of the pain.

In Genesis 43, there was a severe famine in Canaan. Imagine how confused all the people were. How long will this last? Are we going to die? Why is God doing this? No one could see God’s big picture – this famine would reunite Jacob and his sons with Joseph. The brothers were going to be given food in plenty and taken care of for life, but in the moment they felt only pain and hunger. In the end, Joseph and his brothers understood why God had the famine –  to reunite father and son and to give an opportunity for Joseph to show his brothers forgiveness.

2) No one can change God’s plan.

Here is Joseph’s response to his brothers: “…I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” – Genesis 45:4-8

Joseph’s brothers tried to control the situation by selling Joseph to Egypt, but Joseph realized that God had sent him to Egypt for a reason. God used Joseph’s brothers desertion to save lives in Egypt.

3) God’s plan is hidden to unbelievers. 

“We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” 1 Corinthians 2:7.

We don’t know if Joseph’s brothers were Christians or not, but their actions of selling their brother and lying to their father are not very Christ-like. Thus, God’s plan for Joseph remained hidden.

4) We have to continue to love them.

How easy would it have been for Joseph to hate his brothers? Instead, he choose to love them. Joseph blessed his brothers with gifts, food, and spared their lives. Think about the friends who have turned their back on you. We have to continue loving them.

When we are confronted with conflict, we usually respond by defending ourselves and our actions. What if we responded with the gospel? We should respond with grace, love, peace, and mercy. When my friend said goodbye, I wanted to defend myself. I practically listed all the ways I had been a good friend to her in the past. I wonder, would the situation have ended differently if I responded with the gospel? In a loving way, I should have apologized for hurting her. In a graceful way, I should have asked how I could be a better friend. In a peaceful way, I should have said I will not change my beliefs, but I don’t love you any less for your beliefs.

5) Always return to scripture.

As humans, we tend to get self-righteous. An amazing thing happened because of the situations with my friends – my faith grew stronger. Before I was confronted about my beliefs, I knew what I believed, but I did not know why. Confrontation forced me to turn to scripture to find the answers. Any time we are questioned, return back to scripture so you will understand why you believe what you believe.

 

God warns us that people will hate us. “And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” – Matthew 10:22. It hurts when people, especially people you love, hate you. God warns us that this will happen, and he commands us to endure.

Friend, I know how hard it is to lose a friend because of your beliefs. Remember that God has a perfect plan for you. He will use this situation for his glory. Surround yourself with a community of believers who will help you through this challenging time.

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