Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Honest Christian Conversations
You Need Friends!
Whether you claim, "I don't need friends," or you desperately seek deeper connections, this conversation offers the why and how to build relationships that transform your social life and well-being.
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Are you lonely? Do you have friends? If you don't have friends, then you're lonely. But wait, there's more. Maybe you do have friends. You can still be lonely. This may seem like a conundrum, but it is true. You can be lonely with friends. You can be lonely without friends.
Speaker 1:There's more to this idea of being lonely, and today's guest, jake Thurston, has done his due diligence. He has dived deep into this topic of why we need friends, and you are going to enjoy this conversation. It is going to give you new perspective and, men, it is going to give you some practical tips on how you can be more open and honest and make friends in a way that works best for you. So buckle up, get ready to be challenged and equipped and encouraged. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1:I'm Anna Murby. This is Honest Christian Conversations. Before the episode starts make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Jake, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I'm very excited to discuss with you why we need friends. This is a very clever title for a book, because I just think it's funny. It's like oh really, do we need friends? You know, all those people are like I don't need anybody, I'm an island. And then there's others who are like yes, I've been looking for friends, why do I need friends? And then just those who love research and everything, because your book goes into a lot of research, which I thought was very good, and you did mention that this was a dissertation. I think it was or yeah that you did.
Speaker 1:So I mean, you lay it all out. There's not just like hey, we need friends, we need buddies. It's like no, you.
Speaker 1:You went in depth, you discussed why we need this, and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to have you on during my tribute to masculinity, because the men out there are probably groaning and rolling eyes and saying I don't need friends. My wife keeps saying, oh, I need friends, or hang out with my friend's husband, and I'm like would you leave me alone? My husband said that to me a few times, so this is not necessarily only a men's issue, because I too, at one point didn't think I needed friends, but I know men tend to have trouble making friends and I think you're going to have some great insight into why. So we are going to discuss your book, but before we get into that, give us a brief overview of who you are.
Speaker 2:My name is Jake, not Jake from State Farm, but Jake from Vermilion, south Dakota. Vermilion is a small college town, home to a huge university. We're home to the University of South Dakota. The median age of our city is 23 years old, if that puts anything in perspective, which is just really, really fun. We're in the southeast corner of the state and I am the lead pastor and church planter of Resilient Church here in town. We're coming up on our three-year birthday here soon and this has been a joy to be able to be here up on our three-year birthday here soon, and this has been a joy to be able to be here. And we have a huge heart for the college student, the young adult in our city where we just feel like that's a huge gap that's not being reached, and so I have a huge passion for that. It also really comes out in my book, really being kind of targeted towards a young adult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could tell too Some of the terms and everything the pop culture references, yeah, yeah, which is really fun. Yeah, so I've been doing ministry for coming up on 10 years here soon in various contexts, but we've we've loved being here in Vermillion. I've been married for over six years, my wife Casey, and we have three kids. I am an avid Chipotle lover. I've been experimenting with brewing my own kombucha, so I feel like a hippie, so I was like I got to get all that gut health probiotics in it.
Speaker 2:And yeah, just generally love people, love the church, love friendships and yeah, that's a 30,000 foot overview of me.
Speaker 1:You are absolutely right that the college and young adults are being overlooked a lot and it's very interesting that God has you in a church in a college town. It's very small. It's like really God of all the places this place, but there is a reason for it. It's very small. It's like really God of all the places this place, but there is a reason for it. That's awesome. Let's get started on talking about your book, first of all. How did you get into this? What made you want to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly, it goes all the way back to when I was in high school. I've just always had a radar for the person who's just kind of on the outs, who's not a part of the youth group or just kind of hanging out by themselves. And I don't know if you've taken strengths quest, Clifton strengths or anything to find your top five strengths, but one of my top five strengths is includer.
Speaker 2:So I love making sure people are included as a part of the group, that no one's left out, and just to create a strong culture of belonging in any team that I work with, any organization I work with. So I've always had that passion for friends and making sure people belong. So in 2015, when I started working on my master's program, I stumbled upon a stat that said that America was one of the loneliest nations in the world and that we had been enduring a loneliness epidemic. This was 2015. This was five years before COVID.
Speaker 2:I feel like the loneliness epidemic is all over. This was 2015. This was five years before COVID. I feel like the loneliness epidemic is all over the place now.
Speaker 2:It's just so front and center, but this has been a red light or a red flag for a very long time. So I thought that was crazy. I'm like how could it be for us here in the States where we're so, so lonely? But then in the same semester I stumbled upon this ancient Christian practice called spiritual friendship. That has a long running history in church history by a number of different people. The person I particularly focused on was St Alred of Ravaux. He was a monk at a monastery in the 1100s who just wrote this beautiful depiction of what friendship with other believers, and even what friendship with God, looks like. That is just so foreign to our culture. So I had this thought how could the local church remedy our loneliness epidemic through the rediscovery of spiritual friendship? And I mean, I thought that made a pretty great master's thesis the one. But then I couldn't shake it. It didn't just stop with my master's in 2017.
Speaker 2:I went on to like, start blogs about it, wrote sermons about it, I went and gave some keynotes about it and finally I was like I think this is significant enough that I need to get a doctoral degree in this. And so I spent six years working on my doctorate of ministry, particularly studying how spiritual friendship can remedy loneliness amongst young adults between the ages of 18 to 24. And the results were astounding. The results were astounding. So all that to say like.
Speaker 2:This book then culminates with almost 10 years worth of research between dissertation and papers, but also sermons and other interviews and also just real life experiences. For myself, when people hear dissertation like this isn't an academic book, but it's deep. It's simple but it's deep. And I try to give everyone the compelling evidence of like, you're right, you need friends. And even when you hear that like and the reason why I love the title so much is because often when someone says you need friends, that can almost be viewed- as an insult, right Like there's something wrong with you to the point where you say, like you need more people in your life.
Speaker 2:Or it's an indicator of desperation, Like I need a friend. But the hard science shows and scripture shows, the theology shows we are designed for community. We are at our best when we are deeply embedded in significant relationships who can know us fully and we don't have to hide anything. So that's essentially what the book explores and my hope with this is that it can get out to as many people as possible and change their lives forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely. It reminded me, because I've been in several different stages. I had friends up until I was 17. I enjoyed having friends, and then we moved from a big house that had a pool to a small two bedroom apartment and at that same time I don't know if that's why, but a lot of my friends just kind of disappeared. Either some of them graduated because they were older or they just disappeared from my life. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it could have very well just been that big, that shallow of a thing. I have no idea. But my last year of high school was the worst for me because I had so many issues, just a whole bunch of different things changed and at that point something shifted in my brain where it's like I don't need friends, they just hurt you. They'll go off and do something and talk about how much fun they had, but nobody invited me and I hated that and I just got so bitter and got to a point where I was like I don't need friends, I don't want friends who cares. Two of your chapters are called I don't need friends and I don't want friends who cares. Two of your chapters are called I don't need friends and I don't want friends. And I was like, oh, has he been following me my whole life? It's like that is literally what I used to say forever. Forever I felt this way. I don't. I had friends. Ok, because I am a friendly person and I can be kind to people.
Speaker 1:So I had people in and out of my life. They would just, it was like a revolving door. They just kept going in, going out, going in, going out, and I used to be upset I was like why are they ghosting me? Why are they not including me in things? It used to get so mad and I was very shy and did not want to invite myself because I felt like, hello, you should have just invited me. If you wanted me around, why should I invite myself? But at the same time, looking back, I probably could have invited myself. Maybe they just didn't think about it. But I was very self-centered. You didn't think about inviting me. Are you kidding me? Like I'm some big thing that they had to think of. But my mindset was just I always had trouble with making friends. Being super shy at church. You would have been the kind of person that I love slash hated because you wanted to include me.
Speaker 1:But it's like you want to include me because I'm the loser in the corner. Who's hoping nobody includes me? I want to be included, but I don't want you to know. Yes, yes, that is exactly the conflict I have had my whole life. That is always I still I'm 40 something years old and occasionally, if I'm at a church event and I'm by myself and I don't know anybody, my husband's not there for me to attach myself to or my kids.
Speaker 1:I will get back into that mindset of you know everyone is doing their own thing. I don't know anyone here. I kind of just clam up and get on my phone, and you know everyone is doing their own thing. I don't know anyone here. I kind of just clam up and get on my phone and you know it just brings me back to my youth years. Having friends has always been an issue for me Until recently. I have a good set of friends and I am realizing what your book talks about is why we need spiritual friends, why we need that spiritual connection, why we were made for connection. I mean, when I came back to Christ at 30, that's when I had a lot of change in my mindset of why I need friends.
Speaker 1:I saw the deep need for it because I was going through a divorce. I had two young kids and I needed help and all I had was a church I had been to twice and a couple of moms that I had met at a group once and they just rallied up and they helped me. And then that grew and I'm still at that church and it grew and then I met my husband through one of those friends and just snowballed and now I have some really great friends, just like a small group. But I've also become at peace with knowing that some people in my life may not stick around for the rest of my life, but that God had us together for a reason, for a purpose and no matter how long that is, I'm okay with that. That is a big change for me to have.
Speaker 1:I went from hating being around people to please look at me, notice me, to I don't need anybody to. All of a sudden I get it I'm your whole book demographic circle. That's amazing. All in your like. I was reading and I was going. Yeah, I've been there. What in the world? It's like he's following me.
Speaker 1:That's awesome that's amazing, yeah, so. So I think this could definitely change people's hearts, because you mentioned it that this epidemic happened before COVID. So what stats did you find once COVID hit? How much of a change was it? Was it drastic or small?
Speaker 2:There's a number of different stats up there. Some reports say, wow, we're all so much lonelier, you know, come COVID. Actually, I think COVID just forced us to finally realize how lonely we already were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, covid did a lot of changing in many different ways.
Speaker 2:Think about it. It stopped us. We came to a hard stop. You finally had to sit at home and sit with what has been like just been swept underneath the surface, underneath the rug, for so long, and it came up and we finally had to do something about it, because some of the other reports I heard was that actually, loneliness didn't change at all post-COVID. Wow, we just became. It was just you take on the trauma and the uncertainty that comes with a global pandemic. We have to stay at home, and then we're oh, we're lonelier, we're not lonelier. We just finally realized how lonely we were, which is just crazy. And then it's just the need for digital connections and working from home. Like we all got to be remote, we all loved it, when actually now it's like For like five minutes Exactly, and now we're requiring people to come back because we forgot how beneficial one collaborative working person is.
Speaker 2:But second, sometimes the best stuff at work is just the five to 10 minute conversations by the water refill station in between phone calls and in between meetings, and that helps develop camaraderie and everything. So that's crazy, but honestly, we've started to see the social fabric of the states decrease even since the 1980s. There's a book called Bowling Alone by is it Robert Putnam? I can't remember fully his name, but it talks about how the social landscape of America has been changing, that people are getting less and less involved in clubs and recreational activities and even churches, religious organizations, and especially over the last 10, 15 years, as social media has become way more popular the smartphone, right we put all this personalization into our pockets. That then, honestly, the convenience of technology now robs us of the personal connection of other friendships. So you just, kind of you just look at all of that. People are getting less involved in recreational activities outside of the home and now we have these devices that just keep us shut inside of homes, that are literally designed to keep us isolated from one another now. So you've even seen the change in how our houses are designed before, with the front porch. That encouraged collaboration and gathering with your neighbors before and after work. To now, you hang out in your kitchen, which is typically in the back part of your house, or you go outside to your backyard, your back porch we're surrounded by a fence. I'm literally like looking at my backyard right now We've got a fence all around so that we can't talk to our neighbors. It's crazy. So it's been going on for a long time.
Speaker 2:But then the other side of the stats to go back to your question it's the science of how increased loneliness impacts us. It increases our rates of anxiety and depression, deaths of despair, suicide by so much like almost all of those mental health issues have loneliness connected to them. Loneliness both causes those emotions, but also those emotions just further steep us in loneliness. It's a cycle that feeds itself. It decreases our immune systems, decreases our sleep quality, because being in constant loneliness puts you in this fight or flight mode. Your survival instincts kick in Because again, if you think all the way back to when we were living with our tribes out in the middle of nowhere, in the wild, if you get isolated, you're by yourself. You now have to defend yourself against the possible threats right. So it's a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2:The problem is, we're no longer living in the middle of the woods when we're by ourselves, so instead we interpret anybody as potential social threats. We interpret anything as like. We're hyper skeptical of people's intentions, and so it only further doubles down on our loneliness, and the cortisol from that stress hormone just further makes us feel bad. It's bonkers. But then the inverse, though when we are connected in a significant body of friendships whether that's the church you belong to, a small group you're part of and a select number of really really close friends life expectancy extends. It's actually like the impact on your health when you're embedded in good relationships is pretty much the equivalent of quitting smoking a pack of cigarettes per day habit. That's crazy. It increases your immune system. Your anxiety and depression rates go down. It's bananas All the things that truly come around to how much better of a life we live when we can truly fully be known and can be embedded in those relationships. So we're clearly designed for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought it was interesting you had mentioned in part of the book about how you can still feel lonely in a crowd.
Speaker 1:And whenever I hear that phrase, it always makes me think of the celebrities you hear about. They OD'd or they committed suicide and yes, it's sad, but I don't think people realize just how sad that is and some people will brush it off and be like what did they have to be sad for? They had fame, they had fortune, they had people loving on them and everything. But if you take a step back from that, I think it's one of those things like you were mentioning with the COVID is that nothing really changed it, just our perspective changed. We had all this time in the world to sit there and dwell on the fact that we are lonely. We finally realized it. The rose-colored glasses were off and we figured it out.
Speaker 1:I think that's the same thing with this is celebrities are just people too and they have the same needs we have. Theirs might be highlighted because they're all over your screens. They're all over your magazines, books, whatever. But they're also lonely. They can also feel when someone's not genuine with them. When their friendship isn't genuine, they get lonely too. I've always had a soft spot for famous people.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, but I just always have, and I've always taken that extra step to look at them as real people and understand that they may be in our faces because they're in movies, but they are still just people at the end of the day and they have the same needs we do. They just, they probably have them a lot more because they're always surrounded by people, but it might not be the right people, and I know in your book you mentioned surrounding yourself about the right people.
Speaker 1:So how do we go about doing that, and what is the right people?
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, so one of the other big points of our friendships and just how we are hardwired for community and connection is that we are literally formed by the people we're with. The people we surround ourselves with determine what we think, how we feel, how habits we have, and even our work ethic, our sense of happiness, and that ultimately even dictates how much money we make and how our kids do in school. We are the collection of our closest people in our lives. Yeah, there's truly no such thing as pure individuality, because we are so highly formed by the people we're around. But that's why I think, versus what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, that bad company corrupts good character. You can attend church every week, you can read the Bible every day, you can pray for 30 minutes every morning and have all these awesome spiritual disciplines, but if the people you're hanging out with don't love the Lord and they have all these other sinful habits, it will be infinitely harder for you to live out all of these spiritual practices if you're not surrounded by friends as well, because we are just that strongly formed by the people we're with. So there kind of has to be an intentional process in figuring out who you want to be friends with, because you can't just ask the question of like, who do I want to be friends with to remedy my loneliness. You also should go a level deeper and say who do I want to become and therefore, who are the people that can most help me become that? So think about it. People are most likely to lose weight if they surround themselves with other people who are actively pursuing healthy lifestyles, whereas the inverse people are more likely to get divorces when they're surrounding themselves with other marriages that are also falling apart. It's crazy, all these stats of how we're naturally going to become who we're with.
Speaker 2:So if you want to become someone who's good, or more so, if you want to become someone like Jesus, in our Western individualistic society we think, okay, if I want to become like Jesus, I need to pull up, pull myself up on my bootstraps and then just do all of these activities right, all the classic spiritual disciplines that we always talk about in church.
Speaker 2:Just go and do the things, but truly, you need to think about who are people who are also trying to pursue Christ-likeness that I can surround myself with and double down on that, because all of your spiritual disciplines are that much more powerful when you're surrounding yourself with the people who are doing the exact same thing. We become Christ-like when we're with Christ-like people. That sounds so simple, but we don't think about that as a classic spiritual discipline for us to be with. So there needs to be an intentional process where you need to, like, really sit down and think through okay, who are the people in my life that bear Christ-likeness or at least like, who seem to have a good pursuit of good morals and even just like things that you're attracted to on the surface level you know, certain hobbies or maybe similar stage of life or those things those often are kind of the first stage of us connecting.
Speaker 2:And then you can delve deeper into that. And then from there you need to take that first step of asking can we go deeper, outside of just the Sunday morning gathering? If that's where you've gotten to know each other. Maybe you're in a small group with each other and that's all really great. On your weekly Tuesday night programming or whenever your group meets, can you go to the next level and say, hey, can we grab breakfast on Saturday. It's the extra curricular gatherings outside of our Sunday morning services and our Wednesday night youth groups and our Tuesday night small groups or whatever. Those are really the opportunities where we can grow so much in our friendships because we're going outside of just the confines of what our schedules allow. And I have a couple of friends.
Speaker 1:I think we just kind of fell into it. We hung out one time at my house and we just got to talking and I found out that two of my friends, their birthdays had just passed. So we inadvertently kind of just celebrated their birthdays on this day, and then we just started a tradition a few years ago where that's what we do is on our birthdays, we'll take each other to nice restaurants and the three of us will go and the birthday person doesn't have to pay, and it's just the three of us. We're all moms, so we get a break from our kids and we just go and celebrate each other. Yeah, but it's just. That's one of the main things.
Speaker 1:That really brought me back to the importance of friendship and I realized, god, this is what I've been missing my whole life. This is what friendship is, because we have not missed, and if we have to adjust it, so it's, you know, not even really close to their birthday because something came up. We do that, but we're intentional about it and there's moments where I'm like, oh, are they going to forget my birthday? I know friends in the past have forgotten my birthday, but they don't, and that just reminds me of I'm special to them, and then they feel special when we do it for them. So, yeah, that's good. Friendship is hard to find, but it's important and it's worth holding on to.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Oh, that's so good Anna.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned the word individualism In your book. You talk about collectivism versus individualism. What is the difference between those, and do you think one is better than the other?
Speaker 2:Ah, such a great question, such a great question.
Speaker 2:So there are two classic forms of how we view the world, and one is through. What we're most used to is the individualism lens. Or, according to the US, we are a radically individualist society in comparison to how the rest of the society works, and so what an individualistic culture means is that we are ultimately focusing on the self right, so all of life is based around you as the individual. To make sure that your individual rights are protected, you are set free to do whatever you want to do in your own personal pursuits, and in fact, the whole point of the family is to raise you up until you're about 18 and then kick you out is to raise you up until you're about 18 and then kick you out to college or the workforce or whatever for you to start making your own living and even have the full freedom to move across the country, if you want to, in pursuit of your own life.
Speaker 2:You are responsible for finding your spouse. You're responsible for figuring out what you're going to do with your life and where you're going to live. There are those who still live with their parents, which is all fine and good and dandy. That's actually great from a collectivist standpoint, but it's very much about celebrating our uniqueness, separated from our social context, right. So it's all about pursuing our personal comfort of what we want. It's a very me-centered society.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, though, you have what's called collectivist cultures, and the world has mostly remained collectivist. It's mainly in europe, in the united states, that is individualist, so the rest of the world continues to be collectivist, and the world has been collectivist for almost all of humans human history, to put that in perspective and collectivist societies are based on your connection to the greater group you belong to, and so everything about your life, the decisions you make, your worldview, what you're doing with the rest of your life when you grow up, is focused more so on the group you belong to, and the most important group these collectivists belong to is their families. Okay, so that means when you become of age, you know, whenever you become an adult, in collectivist societies, you're not leaving the household to go pursue your own dreams, although you know that's becoming more common. You know international students right, traveling all over to pursue a degree. But in collectivist cultures they're focused on how am I sticking around to help my family, how am I taking on the family business, how am I serving them? And that's why arranged marriages and collectivist cultures are our things, because it's not so much on the unique individual romance between the two couples, it's about the arrangement to unite two families strategically so that they can survive and thrive for the long haul. Interesting right. And so there's just a stronger connection on we need each other to survive, and think about just the whole scope of human history when we don't have all of these technologies to really help us thrive individually.
Speaker 2:If you're just in the throes of nature and you just have your family, you have to ensure that you survive and so therefore, you naturally rearrange your entire life to be around everyone. So when you come here to our modern moment like that's just such a unique shift right when I'm going to lay down all my desires. Everything I want is for the benefit of my family and my connectedness to this group and my church and everything like that. It's much more relationally centered than what we have out here in the West. Now, which one is better, you see, because there's downsides to each right. Individualism it's very easy to become lonely and isolated. It's all about you, you know. But the benefit of that is you don't have any restrictions of the life you want to live, whereas in collectivism, yeah, you're connected to your greater social context, your relational context. It's very, very relational, much slower paced. However, it's easy to lose your sense of self because it's all about the group you belong to right.
Speaker 2:It's very hard to have a sense of autonomy, so there's pros and cons to each. I wish I could say that there's one. That's both, but I, at the very least, think that in our modern loneliness crisis, there's a lot we can learn from the slower paced. Setting aside all of your extra time to ensure that you are providing for your greater relational context yeah, whether that's your family, whether that's your church, whether that's your small group, and really putting friendship at the top of our priority list after work, after or before work, before all of these other individual pursuits.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet? If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship. You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions. You can leave your prayer requests. You can leave your praise reports. This is a community. This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1:Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well. I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you. But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list. If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website, honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes. There's definitely an issue I'm noticing with everyone. You know you have to love yourself. You know self, self, self. Like you said, it's very feels, very self-centered, very me-centered, especially in America nowadays. I'm noticing it a lot and I can see the benefits of finding out who you are, but that should not be the end of it. It's like, oh, I found out who I am, now let's do everything for me.
Speaker 1:That's how you create problems and, like you said, it can lead to loneliness. I think it's also good to have that collectivism. I do talk to some friends in Russia because I'm trying to learn the language. So we you know, we talk and everything, and I'm noticing that they have a very connected family. Their elderly parents will live with them. Their kids are connected.
Speaker 1:They're always doing activities outside, they're going and doing things with their families and there is a shift in some of the things that they say they do on the weekends according to what maybe we do over here, or how they celebrate holidays over there is completely different from how we might celebrate holidays and I'm noticing that there's an awkward tension there because it's like they don't want to hear what we do on this day, because we don't do anything on this day or we gripe about what this holiday is about, and they know every detail about their holiday and they have parades and everyone loves everybody. Like they have women's day and all the women will get flowers from the men. That includes the police officers will hand flowers to the women. Like it's very collectivism I've noticed.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I just think that's beautiful and cool, but that's not what we do over here. We're like I'll get it for my mom, if I remember, on Mother's Day, and that's very sad, because we do need that connection. We need to remember those who sacrificed for us to be able to have that individualism. So, yeah, I think it would be hard to just pick one or the other.
Speaker 2:Well and you don't realize that perhaps the water you're drinking is making you sick until you try something else. Or, like you, maybe don't realize the condition of your life is so bad until you step outside of it and see that there are different ways to view the world and navigate the world.
Speaker 2:And that's really what chapters three and four try to do is diagnose our loneliness epidemic. You see, most are through physical disease. Right, covid was a pandemic. You know, bird flu is an epidemic. It's spread to you whether you want it or not. You can take some precautions, but at the end of the day, most pandemics, through illnesses, are going to infect you against your will.
Speaker 2:But cultural epidemics like loneliness you don't just catch a loneliness disease that makes you lonely. We are products of our culture, we're products of our society and we are opting in a lifestyle of values that has tons of perks on one end, but it is costing us deeper relational satisfaction and therefore we are lonelier and isolated because of it. And it is all on us. We are fully responsible for partaking in this loneliness epidemic. And so sometimes, well, I shouldn't say we're always responsible for the loneliness we feel, right, because sometimes people leave or you have to make a move and therefore you're thrown in it, but we are still responsible for doing something about it, right? You have so much more power over your loneliness than you believe. We choose to stay lonely. It's up to us to determine how to take those next steps.
Speaker 2:But sometimes, well, in chapters three and four, I try my best to pick us out of our culture that we're so accustomed to our individualistic lifestyle and our isolated lifestyle with all of our devices and all the things that we do, and just show us there are other ways to live, collectivist cultures that are deeply embedded in relationships and don't need all this other stuff, that we have to be happy.
Speaker 2:In fact, they're often happier despite being more impoverished. That's interesting, not to downplay the severity of poverty, but to show like they're still happier despite us having all of these things going for us out here in the West, that maybe our devices aren't so helpful in all those things Because, like, normal is normal regardless of how bad it is If it is normal to you. What we need to really fully diagnose the problem is to have someone diagnose the problem, to show us what it is in comparison to how things should be. So, yeah, that's really what part one is all about is trying to help us reconcile our need for something different than what we're currently doing because it's not working.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, let's jump to part two, because there was a chapter name in there that I thought was interesting, called Naked and Unashamed. What is that chapter about?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. So I'll share about it by opening up or by talking about the story I share at the beginning of the chapter. So I am an avid coffee lover. You know one of my favorite things to do is to spend time with Jesus in a coffee shop. It's one of my favorites. So it was the summer of 2018. I went home to Indiana to catch up with my family for vacation. I went to one of my favorite coffee shops in town and I got my pour over coffee. I sat down, journaling and everything and all that was just so good. But then coffee kind of gets you moving on the inside right, and so I had to go do my business and I completely clogged the coffee shop's toilet. I completely clogged the toilet and I'm working at a coffee shop back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. At the time.
Speaker 2:So like I, am a kindred barista here. There is nothing worse than having to go into a toilet and having to clean up someone else's crap, right, yeah, so I'm like, okay, so I try to take matters into my own hands with a punch, I try to fix the toilet and you flush it and just the water starts rising.
Speaker 1:You're like oh, my God.
Speaker 2:I am praying. Holy Spirit, shut the floodgates of this toilet, do not let this overflow, and thank God it stopped. But this wasn't the worst part. The worst part was having to go up front and confess to, ironically, someone I knew from high school.
Speaker 2:It's like Dan, I totally clogged your toilet. I don't know what to do. And Dan just sighs. He says this has been quite the start to my morning. He goes back and he returns with a mop and rubber gloves and ready to take on my mess. And I was humiliated. But the point of the whole, of the whole poop story I can't even believe I include that in the book.
Speaker 1:But it's such a powerful example for this.
Speaker 2:one principle is that we need other people to help us handle our crap. Shame is the greatest enemy to community In the history of humanity. You go to Genesis, chapter 3, and the fall of humanity happens when the serpent causes Adam and Eve to discover their nakedness and they feel shame. It says in Genesis 2 that they were naked and unashamed, and that's not just physically, they were emotionally naked. They could be fully vulnerable and intimate and known by each other and God. That's a trifecta of relational satisfaction you can be fully known with yourself, with another person, with God at the center of that relationship. But then when sin enters the picture, what happens? They're filled with shame and they cover themselves right and at the end of the day, I don't think loneliness is like in our widespread loneliness is strictly from people not having any friends.
Speaker 2:I think that's what we often believe. Our loneliness epidemic is just from a bunch of people who are isolated, with no friends whatsoever. It's like, no, the majority of people have good friendships that they're happy with. But perhaps where the loneliness epidemic happens is we have friends who don't know us fully, where you can hang out with, with people but they don't know you. Loneliness can ensue when you feel misunderstood or not fully known or connected.
Speaker 1:on that deeper level put it into a perspective for the men, because they're like, they're for sure and that's yeah and we can definitely go into that.
Speaker 2:So really, the whole point in the naked and unashamed chapter is we need the powerful practice of confession and vulnerability regularly with the people that we call our friends. Because you can do all these fun things together. You can have the playdates with your kids, you can go on morning runs, you can take the vacations and all those are really great. They create memories, but at the end of the day, the depth of your friendships depend on the depth of yourself you're willing to share. Being able to surround yourself with people when you're going through a really hard time. That builds trust and camaraderie that vacations just don't do. When you can talk about the things that are so hard that you don't want anyone to know it, that you want to keep hidden. That is when breakthrough to community happens. Sin thrives when it is by itself, when it is not known, when it is kept in the dark but, we have to shine a light on that and yeah, Jesus knows it.
Speaker 2:But actually I think confessing to God our sins is the easy part. It tells us to confess our sins to one another as well.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And as it relates to guys, because women do this all the time.
Speaker 1:They're really great. We can chat all day long and everything will come out.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. It's like this is something that's very, very simple, for I shouldn't say it's completely easy. Shame still takes its unique forms for men and women in different ways. But for men, we want to just tough it up and be our own person. We don't want to show people the depth of our weakness. We were told at a young age men, don't cry, buck it up, Figure this out, don't show your weakness.
Speaker 2:And I think. But what's so fascinating and I've been on a couple of other podcasts specifically for men in the faith is that the most faithful men I know to the gospel and to Jesus there is a tangible difference in how they live their lives and how they hold their emotions, because it tends to be that the closer these people are to Jesus, these guys are to Jesus, and the more vulnerable they are with others. They tend to be more emotional, because I think they've overcome that hurdle of saying I have to keep it all hidden, and I think there's also deep wounds there, maybe from our families of origin who just we weren't ever allowed to feel those things and process those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we have to hold it up inside, but really it's like that's. It's actually why I think the life expectancy for men is lower, because we carry so much weight of unconfessed burdens yeah, amongst us that just weighs on us for so long. And so, yeah, there's a tangible difference between just the aura of men who can live vulnerable lives with other believers who are deeply serious about their relationship with Jesus. It just breeds a guy who doesn't have it all together and is okay with it. In fact, I would say it is more courageous for men to open up about their issues with other guys and other people than to just keep it all in for yourself. You're only kidding yourselves. It's a protection mechanism, not a courage mechanism.
Speaker 1:So what would be a practical tip you could give to a man who would like to be open at some point, but he literally has no idea how?
Speaker 2:That's the constant question I get how?
Speaker 1:do, we do this.
Speaker 2:You just have to give it a shot. At the end of the day, it is that simple. There's nothing more profound than that. I mean the first step really is you need to find someone that you can trust. Maybe there is someone already in your network of guys that you trust. Maybe you need to befriend someone Like again, take kind of that audit of the people in your life you know, your small group, your church or maybe a work buddy who knows Jesus. You're like there's some potential there.
Speaker 2:And sometimes it takes a while to develop the friendship before you can fully pour out your whole life to it. It's in very rare instances where you can just open up to someone. You barely know about all the things going on. Sometimes that can be overwhelming and sometimes can maybe shut down the friendship if that person's not in a place where they are ready to take that on. But if there's someone that you're close enough to, eventually you just need to say hey, can you come over to my place? I just I got something I really need to share and go at it.
Speaker 2:It's messy, it's hard, there's no way to do it. It's supposed to feel icky Anytime. I confess it just feels so hard to break through that, because the fear the enemy puts in your mind is what if they leave? What if they hate me, what if I had to protect myself, all these things. But when you can push through that and the person stays because, yeah, there's always the risk that they might respond negatively but there's also the possibility that they hear you and they help you and they love you anyway you just strengthen your relationship right there and you feel a thousand times lighter too. Confession is the pressure release valve of our lives. If you look at like Instapots or any pressure cooker, you got to release the pressure first before you open it and if you don't, it could explode. If you don't release the pressure and confession and vulnerability is that for our lives and you. That is the path towards freedom Truly, I think, is being able to confess those things to other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, man. This has been a very cool episode. I'm hoping that this will encourage men to just take that step and find a guy that they know that they get along with well and to just take that chance.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, one last thing that I'll add to that, because I just thought of this Women tend to be the most vulnerable face to face, right, they sit down across a table and confess and talk about those things, or they sit across each other like on a couch, whereas men tend to be more vulnerable side to side, doing something together. Like often, like the most maybe vulnerable communications they'll ever have is when they have a buddy over working on the workbench or something or trying to do something with the house and like you're chasing that activity together, and so that's something else that happens. If you can have like an activity to buffer, that that tends to help men also.
Speaker 1:There's a bonus tidbit for you guys Pro tip men, Do something while you're doing it and just work so you don't have to look each other in the eye.
Speaker 2:You know, so you don't have to look each other in the eye, you can just like look down at your, you know, yeah go bowling, go fishing.
Speaker 1:you may not like fishing, but hey, it's there. Just focus on the net in the, not the net. See, I don't go fishing the pole on the net, the sea. I don't go fishing the pole on the pole. Well, I guess you can use the net too if you want to go, like in the water. Anyways, do an activity. It might make it a lot easier. And I think with anything you practice over time it will become easier to just have those conversations. You'll be in a place, in a friendship, where you might not even have to say anything. They might say something to you and say, hey, is where you might not even have to say anything. They might say something to you and say, hey, is everything okay? It doesn't seem like it, and then you don't have to start that conversation. They just started it for you and then you can just yeah. So yeah, there's some tips for everybody. Well, jake, before we go, please share where everyone can get your book.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is available on Amazon. That's the easiest way to get it Paperback as well as Kindle edition. So you can hop over to Amazon search for you Need Friends by Jake Thurston and you can find it there. Otherwise you can visit wwwyouneedfriendscom. There's some links to the book from there as well as, if you just want to learn more about what the book's about, kind of the main thrust, as well as additional resources that I provide there, some video teachings that are there on these topics. If you just want to dive deeper into all of it, you need friends dot com. You can also contact me via that website. You can just click the contact button. Or if, for whatever reason, you don't have Amazon, you're like no anti Amazon, you're all about local books or whatever. Just You're like no anti-Amazon, you're all about local books or whatever. Just you can send me an email at jake at youneedfriendscom and I will mail you a copy and we can go from there and figure that out.
Speaker 1:So that's how you can get a copy of it, all right. Well, thank you so much, jake, for coming on and having this conversation. I know it's been beneficial for everyone listening. Awesome, it's my pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks so much, dot com to leave a review or feedback as well. Join the community and become part of something bigger than yourself. Lastly, sign up for the mailing list and get the free seven day devotional as a thank you gift. Once again, thanks for listening. I look forward to our next conversation.
