A Note on Sinning for Friends (Part One)

I’m beginning to realize that I have a problem. I sin for friends.

It’s an old sin, one which wormed its way into me at a young age. I am only now beginning to finger it out from the nearly untraceable burrows its made.

Throughout high school, most of my closest friends endured a season of intense difficulty, during which they sometimes despaired of their walks with God (an experience I seemingly evaded—until college). From my perspective, their individual teeterings between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were out of control, and I worried that the demons they faced would overcome them.

So I stepped in.

I prayed, I encouraged, I conversed. I sometimes begged. When a friend fell into sin, I leapt upon them as if to smother fire, I gave myself as if throwing my body into a pit. They needed a savior, someone who would join them in their pain and walk with them—even carry them—to safety.

Which, in some ways, sounds very heroic. Until you realize it’s a little bit creepy.

We’ve all known a junior high boy (or, God help us, been one) whose zeal for a young lady made him cross the line from starry-eyed loverboy to thirteen-year-old stalker. He doesn’t yet know what he can and can’t be for a girl, and he becomes grossly possessive. Somehow, his successful first kiss convinces him he’ll make a good husband.

Well, my friendships have often looked something like this. I notice that a piece of advice somehow lands, and I suddenly believe I have wisdom to give. I notice a family member is having a rough day, and I’m convinced I can provide the answer if I try hard enough. I mull. I worry. Worry is the weapon I have learned to wield, and it has pierced its object just enough times to make me cling to it all the harder.

In short, I don’t yet know what I can and can’t be for someone. I become heavy with burdens that don’t belong to me. I become a kleptomaniac, snatching up others’ difficulties and loading them in deep pockets.

This verse from Galatians 6 says it better than I can: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

Throughout my life, when a friend has been caught in a transgression, I have often attempted to restore him. But I have not been very good at keeping watch over myself, and I have often been tempted. The temptation I face is one I now recognize as being common to many: the temptation to become savior.

Each of us is designed by God for a specific purpose, and our enemy always forms his blueprints from whatever stolen schematics he manages to obtain. In this way, our great callings become entangled with our great temptations, and we are left to sort out which is which by God’s help.

Tune in Friday for Part Two, in which I reveal some ugly parts of myself.