Recovering Friendships

Sometimes friendships fall apart. We don’t handle conflict well, or there’s some sort of rupture and then we lose track of each other by not putting in the effort to recover. Years can pass. And yet, there’s always hope for repair, especially as we grow in self-awareness and appreciation for others.

In his final greetings to Timothy, Paul writes“Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Timothy 4:12). What’s interesting about this is that about 15 years before this, Paul and Timothy had had a huge relationship bump and gone their separate ways. Paul was still bitter about it afterwards and actually broke off his partnership with Barnabas because Barnabas was trying to help the two of them repair their relationship (and Paul was having none of it). This is how it went:

“Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company.” Acts 15:37-39).

So now, fifteen years later, Barnabas obviously wore Paul down and somehow got him to reconnect with Mark. Eventually Paul came to recognize Mark’s giftedness and value… and Paul changed his tune. Isn’t that remarkable?

Are there relationships in your past that you’ve written off where God might be encouraging you to consider repairing them? (Please: this is not an invitation to guilt or shaming people for cutting off abusive people, etc. - this is just an invitation to consider repair in what might be considered ‘normal’ relationships). Let’s talk with Jesus about this.