S2 - E2 - Friendship & Faith Levels

Glory & the Grind

Season 2, Episode 2

Friendship & Faith Levels

In this episode of Glory & the Grind, we're talking about navigating friendships and family relationships when people are at different places in their faith journey. What do you do when you're growing closer to Christ, but the people around you aren't? How do you love well without compromising your convictions? And how can God use those relationships for His glory?

Carly’s Glory & Grind of the Week

Grind: Brain Fog
Glory: Humility & Trust

God's Promise “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of His Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” -1 John 1:7

Main Topic: Being on Different Levels of Faith with Family & Friends

Raleigh's Story

• During a high school junior retreat, Raleigh prayed for holy friendships.
• God answered that prayer—but not necessarily in the way she expected.
• As her faith grew, she found herself developing a false sense of spiritual superiority. What began as a desire for holy friendships slowly became a temptation to judge others who weren't where she was spiritually.

Through that experience, God taught an important lesson:

• Holiness isn't about comparing ourselves to others. It's about becoming more like Christ.
• Not Every Friendship Has to Be the Deepest Friendship. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is expecting every friendship to fulfill every need.

What to Do with Friends Who Aren't There Yet. 

• If you have friends or family members who aren't pursuing Christ the way you are: continue loving them, continue praying for them, and continue showing up for them.

Feeling Alone in Your Faith. 

• Many Christians experience seasons where they feel spiritually isolated.Sometimes that loneliness is an invitation. 
• God may be calling you to seek deeper community, stronger accountability, or friendships rooted in a shared pursuit of holiness. 
• Spiritual friendships are rarely found accidentally. They often require intentional effort and a willingness to seek Christ-centered communities. 
• When you pursue Jesus first, He has a way of bringing the right people alongside you.

Reflection Questions 

• If your current friendships were the only witness others had to Jesus Christ, what would they see?
• Does your love for friends and family stem from your love for Christ, or does your love for Christ sometimes take a backseat to your love for others?

Coming Next Episode: Lack of Discipline

• Next week, we're discussing something many of us struggle with: discipline. We'll talk about practical ways to overcome spiritual laziness, build healthy habits, and stay faithful in the small things.

Connect With Us
Have a question or topic you'd love us to discuss?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Glory and the Cloud. It's Ray Weekly and the Glory How are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 0:11

And then here I've started two friends grinding green one and the grind of motherhood. And then my grind. Also done a better first starting and then restarting the laundry. And then lifting all the green. Oh shoot!

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I wash it for your days. And well, I don't know. I don't know. My brain doesn't work this day. Is that I think it has to do with I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Anyway, we take dirt here from life and little movement into the life story.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

So if it's one of the dive in the moment, I've got more dumbness and possibilities like things in my brain don't always work. And it really makes me feel self-conscious. And it really makes me feel um like I don't always trust myself to be patient, to be kind, to be on top of things. And my my self-esteem gets a little bit lower. So in sharing that with my husband. You know that. Yeah. In sharing that with my husband, he kind of shared with me, you know, you don't need to always be on top of everything. Like we're we're a team, and you you're you're not alone, and it's all gonna work out. It's gonna be okay. Uh so I, my glory has been, I have actually chosen to believe that that is true. And just amen. And just practice some humility, which is that I think I I have always had a tendency towards self-reliance and being like, I need to figure out it's on me, all the things, but it's not because I have a husband who's supposed to be my partner in this family life. I have teammates at work who I can share responsibilities with and let them know when I'm having things going on at home. Um, and I just need to trust in the Lord because all of these big important things that I want to happen, like raising my family well or you know, having things go well at work or whatever it is, it's really all in his hands anyway. So like I can reel back. And and that has felt spiritual because that that my brain fog and my self-esteem affects how I pray. Because like I'm showing up to the Lord not being everything I could be, right? And it's like he don't need you to be nothing, he just needs you to show up. So yeah, like it makes it from your head to your heart, and that's that's a pretty long, that's a pretty long journey. It is, it really is. Um, especially when you are making it harder on yourself than it needs to be. So I'm practicing some humility this week, and I hope I can do it again next week. And I hope I can do it again tomorrow.

unknown 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

So that's where I'm at, but I'm excited to hear what you have for us today as we jump into our topic.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, so Mar, Mar, Mar, Mar, our God's promise for today comes from the first letter of John, chapter one, verse seven. So I love John the Apostle. He's like, I it's probably one of the first people I'm excited to meet in heaven because he really does have so much about him in the New Testament. Like, he's got a gospel named after him, he's got his letters, he's got revelation, he calls himself the beloved apostle. Like, I feel like he and I would really get along. And I'm you know, I've just built this relationship up in my head between him and I. So I'm excited that our God's promise comes from his letter. First letter of John, chapter one, verse seven, and it says, But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have friendships with one another, and the blood of his son, Jesus, cleanses us from all sin. Oh. Oh. When John's writing this letter, he's obviously writing it to someone, right? Like he's not writing in his journal and hoping that someone makes a book out of it someday. He's writing this intentionally to another person and reminding them that both of them need to walk in the light. He's calling himself out, he's calling his friend out, and then saying, if we're both walking in the light, then we do have a friendship, then we do have a bond. And it's not just something casual, something, you know, sometimes it is a true friendship in Christ and that God dwells with us both. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

And he will clean both of us, right? Like we will see fruit in having this holy friendship, which is wonderful. And that's what we're going to be talking about today, friends. The question from our listener that prompted today's conversation surrounded this idea of how to treat living with uh relationships with friends and family when you might be on different faith levels. And Raleigh and I kind of played with that a little bit in our minds, turned it over a little bit. What does it mean to be on different faith levels? And so hopefully today, no matter how you interpret that part of the question, we've got something for you. But quick disclaimer: we encourage you to take our words and hold them up against the church's teaching and sacred tradition and sacred scripture, especially if something doesn't sit well with you. It could be that the Holy Spirit is prompting you to dig deeper, or it could be that Raleigh and I have brain fog and we didn't quite say what we meant to say.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

You have been warned.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

So with that out of the way, Raleigh, I'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

So talking about different levels of faith or different faith levels, I used to joke um on like confirmation retreats and stuff. Like, yeah, I'm like a level four Catholic. Like it's not a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Like, it's not like nights in the You once told me that I was at least an eight, and I said, out of 100, what is what are these levels you're making?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

It's like a Monsignor or an archbishop. No, it's like levels of it. It doesn't exist. It does not exist. It doesn't exist. But there's this idea that some people are higher on the hierarchy of faith and and holiness, and we make that up in our minds. That's not real, right? God doesn't look at us and say, You're about 50% holy today. He looks at us and and loves us unconditionally because he is our father. But we do have different levels of sincerity that we take to our faith and intentionality that we take to our faith. And I think that's what Carly and I are talking about different levels of faith. So I want to tell you guys a story about high school Raleigh. Um, because she was some days she was really great and she was really on it, and some days she was a spoiled little brat. She was always really tall. I can tell you that. I have been 5'7 since like fifth grade. I've yeah, when you're 5'3, 5'7 seems really tall. I'm I'm Shaquille. I hate Charles Barclay O'Neill. Oh, bless it. So high school Raleigh. Um, I remember our high school did this really wonderful thing where we started each school year off with a retreat with your class. Um, and then Carly and I, when we worked at that high school, we planned those retreats for, you know, a decade. But I remember my junior retreat, it was um around the time in my life when I really wanted to take my prayer seriously. Um, I started going to mass on, you know, evenings. I started to pray the rosary in my car on the way to school. I was more intentional in my prayer. Was I a better person on the outside? Not really. But between me and God, I was a lot more intentional in my prayer, but not intentional in making changes on the outside. So I I couldn't figure out what was the problem with that. And I'm at my retreat, my junior year, and these two people come. They're young college-age students, and they're talking about this trip that they went on. They went on a pilgrimage and they talked about some missionary work they did, and they're just talking about holy friendships. And I'm just sitting there in awe because I'm like, dang, I want I want holy friends like that. And like backtrack, I had really good friends in high school. Like I had some ride or dies. Um, I was a cheerleader, and I had some really good friends on my cheer team. I had, you know, my friends from my hometown that I just went everywhere with. Like I hit the jackpot. I knew those people.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

They were good people.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

They were friends. And they were like loyal, like they were really good loyal friends, and they were holy in their own capacity. Like they went to mass. We would go to mass on Sundays, but like I just wanted, I wanted someone who was reaching for holiness more than I was so that they can pull me along, is what I was really looking for. I was looking for somebody to just drag it out of me. And we were all just kind of living in this bubble of of comfortability in high school because it's such a little bubble. So that was my prayer. I started to pray like, God, please send me holy friends or send me friends that I can, you know, Jesus freak out with. You know, I wanted people that I can go to retreats with and go to adoration with. I just wanted holy friends. And he said, okay, well, I'll just give you those friends. And the two people that came and spoke to our retreat when I was a junior, um, I ended up joining like this kind of young adult group within college, and we went to pilgrimages together and we, you know, kind of grew in friendships. And I was very excited to have these friends in my life, these people are surrounding me who were truly just striving for holiness. Like the little comments or um inappropriate jokes or maybe just like you know, bad language, they would not call me out on it, but they weren't practicing it, therefore I didn't want to practice it. Um, they would bring, you know, different saints and they would bring different um prayers and just different virtues into conversations that I wanted to model that. And I kind of grew in this false sense of superiority. And I think that's like the biggest hurdle to people that are trying to grow in their faith, if you're not doing it with a heart of humility. Um, if you don't take the heart of Jesus in with growing with that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Absolutely. I totally see that because how easy it is to think that because you made it, and even if it's not spiritual, like it's your new year's resolution, right? And you've been running every day, and you're like, look at all these people who don't run. Yeah. You just you just feel like you've you discovered something and you committed to it, and you feel proud of yourself for doing that, and then it becomes the sin of pride rather than like the regular just proud of yourself for doing something for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah. And I like I can I can admit that because it's part of like my my journey and growing in my faith is understanding, you know, my place in the eyes of God and the eyes of the world. Like, I am not gonna get a medal for sending my kids to mass. I'm not going to, you know, get on better homes and gardens for having religious art in my foyer. I'm not doing that for others. I'm doing that for my family and I'm doing that for me. So learning that humility, first off, if you're if you're striving to surround yourself with holy friends, or if you're trying to surround yourself with people who are seeking holiness as well so that they can help you and pull you along, it's important to recognize that not every friendship has to be the deepest friendships, right? You don't have to abandon existing friendships that you've had because you see that they're oh well, they're not, they're not trying as hard as I bull. It doesn't, it's there's no trying as hard. There's just understanding meeting people where they are, and you can appreciate the relationship for what it is rather than expecting it to be something that it's not because we're called to live in community with one another and communion with one another, but we're not going to be the ones that change people's hearts and minds by judging them. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

That absolutely never worked, right? And in my experience with friendships like that or or relationships in my family too, what I've noticed is everyone has different temperaments, and everyone is called to a different style of living out their faith life. And we can learn that from the saints, right? Like the saints are so various, they're so different. You know, we've got Saint Benedict, who's living in a monastery and writing his rule of life, and then we've got, you know, um people who like moms, right? Like Saint Gianna, who's a pediatrician and has four kids and married and very happy, right? And they're both saints and they both got to the same place. So to know that your friends um might be experiencing their faith in a different way, they might have different wounds that keep them from receiving parts of the faith at different capacities and they might need healing from those things. They might have different temperaments that like maybe they're super private and you just don't know. Or they're super expressive. And whenever they decide to commit to their faith, it's gonna be all at once, and you'll never see them again because they're moving to Italy or moving to, you know, a third world country to take over as a missionary. Like it's gonna be a different thing than whatever you're doing, and that's right.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Okay, so when I was in college, I I kick myself in whatever the phrase is, kick myself in the butt for this all the time. Because when I was in college, we had this awesome Catholic Student Center where I went to school and they had, you know, so many great things, but I never invited my sorority sisters to it. I never invited my friends to it because I was always so nervous about that whole superiority thing. I didn't want people to think that I was inviting them because I thought you need to come to this. I I just I got stuck in my own head. And one of my other friends, who's also was one of my sorority sisters, she just started inviting people and people started coming. And some of those people became missionaries, and some of those people started like flipping, you know, their lives around from the outside looking in, right? Like, I can only see what they do on the outside. I don't know what God's working on their heart. And I'm like, dang, all I had to do was just say, Hey, do you want to come with me to XYZ? Right. And like not attach all of this major baggage to it. Like that's we don't know where our friends are in their hearts. And we're never gonna know unless we just offer that invitation. We don't need to offer that invitation and have any strings attached to it because we wouldn't want someone to do that to us as well. Sure. Yeah, that's a great point for sure. So, what do you do? What do you do with friends who aren't there yet? Like maybe, you know, I'm we're talking as moms. We've we've been through high school, we've been through college. Carly and I have experienced all of those things of trying to make, you know, wholesome friendships. What do you do right now? Let's say you're in high school, let's say you're in college or you're a young adult. What do you do if you have friends that just quote unquote aren't there yet? Um you keep those friends, you don't have to let them go. But be mindful of what is pulling you away from Christ. It might not be that friend, it might be the activity y'all do, it might not be that person, it might be the conversations that you guys always have. Adjust your time and activities if you need to do that and see your faith as an opportunity to invite them to get closer. It doesn't have to be, you know, a I had this change. Now I need to 100% clean out everything in my closet, throw away all my old clothes, throw away all my, you know, whatever. You you keep those friends, but you change what happens. You change what you do together, you change what you talk about together.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

And I think you have to have a healthy, um we talked about this in episode one. You have to have a healthy detachment from outcomes as well. If you feel like you've intentionally prioritized your faith life and your relationship with Christ, and in you already maybe have a lifestyle that people didn't expect out of you, or just, you know, your friendships don't really revolve around your faith life, then if you start going in that direction and people take umbrage with that, like if you have friends who are like, what do you think you're better than me? Or like, what do you think like uh I need to be different? Like, that's not like religion's not my thing, whatever, then you they've kind of already told you, like, I'm willing to be your friend up until this point. That's not you, right? That's not you saying, Oh, I think I'm better than you, so I'm gonna go away from you. If someone else has a rejection, then that's them. You have the responsibility of loving your friends and loving your family and being honest about who you are and what matters to you. You can't control the outcome of that honesty. And I'm not good at that either. I have absolutely maintained relationships where I'm like, I will gladly talk to you about our favorite TV shows and go to our favorite restaurants and like plan to do this music festival day with you or whatever. And I will never bring up the fact that I'm prioritizing prayer or that I prayed the rosary on the way to your house or that I need to be late to that um uh music festival day because I'm going to church first. Like, I've made those choices. I have not been explicit with people about my intentions, but it is the correct approach would be to say we have certain things we hope for our friendships, but it's a two-way thing. If you're honest about who you are and they love it, then it's then it's lovely. But you have to keep that integrity, no matter who what relationships you're prioritizing.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yeah, absolutely. And just a word of advice for any of our, you know, younger listeners, especially those of you in young adulthood or even college, as you are discerning what your future looks like and discerning that vocation to marriage, we are actually going to talk about marriage and picking a spouse and all of that good stuff in a later episode, but thinking about who you surround yourself with, right? If you're called to marriage, that that spouse that you're looking for are just people that you're interested in dating, you want them to be in those circles of friends, especially if you are striving for, you know, holiness and living a moral life. So it's okay. I know high school is so hard because it's such a tiny bubble, and you're like pool of people to pick for your friends is so sparse. And you might just be like itching to get to college so that that pool of people can get a little bigger. That's what I was like. I was, you know, I love my high school friends and I still keep in touch with a lot of them. Um, but when I went off to college and I had so much more freedom to kind of choose what I did and who I spent my time with, that's where I was really intentional. And nope, I don't want to go do that. No, I don't want to go hang out with that, you know, that group of people. I want to, I want to do this, I want to go here. Um, and really taking the ownership of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Absolutely. And I think that that's true even if you're in an adult. Like if you're closer to the stage of life that Raleigh and I are in, um, we talked about it in season one about how sometimes you've got to prioritize those relationships that mirror where you are at seasonally in your life. So maybe you want to hang out with other Catholic families, or maybe you want to hang out with other women who are interested in Bible study or whatever it is, right? Um, because you only have so much social time. So you're gonna prioritize those friendships that help you to reach those other goals that you have, um, or maybe you've developed sort of a mentorship with other um families or or parents or or friends. Uh so it's okay to do that. The point in having this conversation about faith levels is like Raleigh said, you don't want to think you're better than anybody and that you've got to like, you know, guide them or whatever it is. Like the Lord's got them. You can pray for them and you can love them. And then also when you're discerning how do I spend my time and what relationships do I prioritize, you prioritize your relationship with Christ first. And then that will overflow into all of your relationships because he will form your heart to be more like his. So you will start to love your friends and family more genuinely, more selflessly, with less comparison and less judgment if you're prioritizing your relationship with him. And then if someone rejects you out of that circumstance, then again, that's on them. You can still love them and pray for them, but like they will retreat from you. You don't need to retreat from them. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Right. That just makes me think about um, gosh, when I like try to get my kids excited about something or try to get my kids not excited about something, I make it seem like it's all about marketing. Like, really, you're just out there marketing yourself. Like if you have someone in your life, you're like, oh, I really don't want them to, you make yourself so undesirable. You just become so annoying. Or like if I want my kids to like something, I'm like, yes, we call we call um spaghetti pizza pasta because spaghetti you just like pizza, but it's pasta. I've never heard that before. Oh, we uh do a lot of rebranding and a lot of marketing in our house. Like uh, what is it? Pizza pasta um sprite is spicy lemonade. Okay. We got a lot of rebranding and marketing going on. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

You might have to give us a whole list one day of all of the Pocheisms.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

We shed my son is like dying. He like everyone said, Oh, I'm going recording this Carly. He's like, Can I get on today? I'm like, not today, buddy. No.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Oh, I would love to have him on. Let us know, guys, in the comments and in the reviews if you would like to have the uh the Poche Flynn children. Make some appearances. Could be fun. That would be very entertaining.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Very entertaining. But to wrap up, to wrap up these holy friendships and to wrap up what we're talking about and seeking holy friendships, I just want to remind anyone who may be listening that feeling alone in your faith may be a sign that God is calling you to something deeper. He never leaves us alone. He never leaves us abandoned. But spiritual friendships are often found by intentionally seeking those Christ-centered communities. And if you're struggling to find that, you can be that, right? You can start those Bible studies, you can start those prayer groups. It all starts with one person. And there's no reason why that one person can't be you. Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

And I would also encourage you that if you're experiencing a relationship, like I mentioned before, where maybe somebody has pulled back because of your uh commitment to religion or to a faith life, or you being honest about that being a priority in your life, um, of course, pray for them and of course forgive them because we probably do feel some hurt and rejection and some pain associated with that. Um, but we don't want to create an opportunity for that resentment to grow in our hearts, right? We want to experience that full selfless love that God pours out upon us and we want to be able to share that with others. Um, so yeah, just continued forgiveness, continued prayer, continued love, and you can expect good things in your relationship from that. A couple of reflection questions for you, listeners. If your current friendships were the only witness that others had to Jesus Christ, what would they see? Right. So if someone else looking into your life through the snow globe, they looked at your relationships and saw how you spent your time, who you spent your time with, all the things, how you treat those people, what would they see? Second question for you: Does your love for friends and family stem or pour from your love of Christ? Or does your love of Christ take a backseat to your love for others?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

So something to think about, something to pray with, and always, always something to bring up in the car, something to bring up, you know, on a road trip or whatever with your friend or your spouse or whomever. So we hope that you guys enjoyed today's episode and that the spirit guided your reflection. Our next episode will be about working through the lack of discipline within yourselves, not discipline with our children or your spouse. Don't come here for gentle parenting advice. You will not receive any help.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

No, indeed. But we are going to talk about how to be disciplined with yourself and get yourself to do the things you want to do, not just the things you have to do. Uh, so don't forget to follow us on Instagram and YouTube. If you loved this episode and want to share questions or ideas for future episodes, you can email us at thegloryandegrind pod at gmail.com or DM us on Instagram at theglory and the grind, and we would love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

See y'all next episode through the grind and the grace. We're praying for you. Please pray for us too. Hey! Hey,