A Steadfast Heart: Emotionally Healthy Friendships, Part Two

Hi, I'm Leslie Lutty, host of the Setup Heart Podcast, Biblical Encouragement for Women. We are in our steadfast heart series, and in this episode, we're going into part two of what makes an emotionally healthy friend. And in the last episode in part one, we talked a lot about the foundation for a truly emotionally healthy Christ-centered friend, and some of the warning signs when someone isn't a truly Christ-centered friend. So if you haven't caught that episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to that as you're able. And in this episode, we're going to be looking at the difference between godly exhortation and emotional dependence, because the difference is very, very important when we're looking at what makes a truly Christ-centered friend. Before we jump in, I wanted to remind you, there's just about a week left to take advantage of our Christmas specials. If you go to setapart.org and click on shop or Ellersley.com and click on shop, there's also something right on the homepage that you can click on. We have a lot of amazing resources that make incredible Christ-centered gifts for people in your life of every age, and some just great prices and discounts and products that are only going to be available for another couple of weeks. This is a great time to register for our 2026 setapart conference, especially if you're coming in person to Colorado, you'll get a free conference t-shirt. If you register before the end of the year, we also have our early bird special running on the conference for a little bit longer. So it's just a great time to take a step forward. It's also a great time to consider joining us in 2026 for one of our Ellersley Discipleship Programs for a five-week program or a one-week program because our prices will be going up in 2026. But if you register for one of our programs before January 1st, you can lock in our 2025 prices. So check out the Christmas specials by clicking the link in this description or going to setapart.org or Ellersley.com. Let's dive into what makes a truly emotionally healthy friend part two. Now in the last episode, we talked specifically about flattery versus encouragement. Flattery is saying nice words to someone but with ulterior selfish motives. But encouragement always points someone back to Jesus Christ and the only motive truly is to be an example of Christ to the other person. And another key principle for an emotionally healthy friend is godly exhortation rather than emotional dependence. Emotional dependence is something that is very easy to fall into as women. We can so easily begin to cling to other people and the comforts or the need to always lean on another person versus turning to Jesus Christ first. And an emotionally healthy friend will always seek to encourage us to turn to Jesus first rather than create this weird emotionally dependent situation where we just always have to be turning to them as our friend. Amy Carmichael said it this way, "If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul, instead of leading it to fasten on him that I know nothing of Calvary love." So the key truth is that an emotionally healthy friend will seek to fasten our soul to Jesus instead of make us emotionally dependent on them. There is some sort of an ego boost, I think that a lot of humans can get when someone is emotionally dependent on them. And yet, as John the Baptist said, "My greatest joy comes when the bridegroom is seen, even if they don't know my name, even if they don't notice me, I must decrease, but he must increase." And that has to be our hearts cry when we're seeking to be a good friend. It also needs to be a criteria that we look for in a truly godly friend. One of the ways I think about how this played out in my own life is in my friendship with Eric before we were ever even in a romantic relationship, it was really obvious that being around him was pointing me closer to Jesus Christ. Because after I had spent time with him, I wasn't thinking about him, obsessing over him, wanting to talk to him more. I was wanting to know Jesus more. I saw Jesus in his life. And Eric was very guarded in his interactions with me. He wasn't constantly trying to create this come to me and share your thoughts and feelings with me. He was always encouraging me with truth and to make Jesus Christ the center of my life. So oftentimes I would be with Eric in some situation. We'd have a great conversation. And when I got home, I would be on my knees with my Bible, with my worship music, wanting to know Jesus more. I also had an attitude of just being willing to surrender the friendship and relationship because that was the attitude that Eric had as well. He wasn't clinging tightly to this friendship, thinking, this is so important, we can't let this go. His attitude was, I don't want anything to stand in the way, even the good things in my life. I don't want anything to stand in the way of my relationship with Christ. And I began to adopt that mindset as well. Another fruit of our friendship was that we were both inspired to honor our parents, our siblings, the body of Christ around us and not pull away from them as a result of our friendship. And pulling away from key people in your life because you are so dependent on this one friendship, is a huge warning sign of an emotionally unhealthy friendship. And you start to center your life, your time, your priorities around this one person. That's a warning sign and we're going to be talking a little bit more about that later in this episode. In the last episode we touched on flattery or a more modern term might be love bombing, where someone bombards another person with sweet and flattering words but with ulterior motives to serve their own agenda, to manipulate them, to gain control over them or to get something from them. Another common tactic that sadly has crept into the church is grooming. Again, it's pretending to love and care for someone but with a selfish ulterior motive. Oftentimes it's towards sexual abuse. Sometimes it's toward emotional or psychological control. But one of the main warning signs of grooming is that the groomer begins to create an emotional dependence upon themselves, where the person is being groomed slowly. They begin to pull away from other friendships, from family relationships. And what develops is this sort of exclusive, private, often secret relationship with this one person. And when that happens to you, you become very emotionally dependent on the attention and the approval that you're getting from that person. To the point where it almost becomes like an addiction in your life. One of the warning signs that you have an emotionally unhealthy dependence on another person is that you cannot function without them. You start building your life, your thoughts, your plans around them, all of your thoughts, center upon them and their approval and what they think and how they're going to respond. Now this often happens in male-female relationships that are unhealthy, but I've also seen it happen in other types of friendships as well. There were two young women quite a number of years ago, both were seemingly strong Christians, but one of the girls became very possessive over the other girl. She developed what I would call an exclusive type of relationship with her, where she was always sitting next to her. There was a lot of physical touch involved, a lot of like just sitting close together, arms around each other, stroking hair, that kind of thing. And she was always having intense, deep, private conversations with this girl, excluding other people from the conversations, asking this girl to confide in her, becoming jealous over this girl's time, making sure that they spoke together for hours every day, that this girl told her everything, and causing this girl to pull away from other important relationships in her life. This girl became so emotionally dependent upon this friend that everyone around them, everyone in their circle, begin to feel excluded from the friendship, and even started to feel really uncomfortable with the dynamics of the friendship. Now still to this day, I don't know what this girl's motive was in taking such a control position in her friend's life. Some people who observed the situation felt like maybe it was a same-sex attraction thing, others felt like the girl was just very manipulative, and she liked the idea of her friend being really emotionally dependent on her. And like I said, there is this ego boost that oftentimes you can get when someone is so dependent on you, and that's just a very selfish motive for trying to have an exclusive friendship with someone. But thankfully in this situation, through the warnings of her parents and other godly friends, she started to see that this friendship was very unhealthy in that she had a dangerous emotional dependence upon this friend and that it was negatively impacting her walk with God and every other important relationship in her life. So she walked away from this friendship and this friend's control, and she was set free to live the life that God had called her to live. The key to avoid this happening in our own lives is to be very aware and watchful toward any friend, male or female, who is seeking to create that kind of unhealthy emotional dependence upon them. Our close friends should always exhort us, meaning point us back to Jesus and never try to take the place of Jesus in our soul. As Amy Carmichael said, "If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, that is actually a barrier or a hindrance to their relationship with Christ. It may feel very spiritual or very noble to be the person that they always turn to for everything, but if we're taking that place of Jesus and another person's soul, it's actually dangerous." So counterfeit comforts is something that is very prevalent in unhealthy friendships. One of the ways we know that someone is a truly godly exorter and not someone who's trying to create on healthy emotional dependence is that they offer the right kind of comfort, a biblical version of comfort when we're struggling. And on the flip side, the wrong kind of comfort or counterfeit comfort is one of the key warning signs of an emotionally unhealthy friend. Strategic counterfeit comforts is one of the main tactics of a groomer. They study someone, they spot an emotional vulnerability or a need in that person's life, or even create a perceived need that doesn't exist by feeding those ideas into the person's mind. And then they move in as this loving, caring, comforter who sees your needs, understands your needs, meets your emotional needs, whether that's through words of encouragement or hugs or physical touch or gifts or just always being there when other people might be distracted, They come across as being the one that you can always turn to. the one you can always count on, the one who really quote gets you. And one of the added complications to this is that our culture esteems this kind of comfort. It comes across as good and healthy. I mean, at first glance, it seems like a truly good friend is going to be the one who is just always there for you, who you can go to any time day or night. That person who really understands you and always has the right words of comfort to say. And of course, when you're going through something difficult, a good friend is going to empathize with you and say things like it's so hard for you. That's terrible. I feel so bad for you. You deserve better. Your life is really hard, but I'm here. Now, at first glance, that might sound like a good friend. There are some aspects to empathy and availability that are good, but this kind of poor you, I'm here for you. I understand you. You can always come to me is actually a counterfeit of true, godly, biblical comfort. There are ways to comfort someone through godly exhortation, and there are ways to comfort someone that promotes self-pity and fosters a poor you attitude and causes us to always turn to that friend for our emotional needs instead of first turning to Jesus. And a lot of times, they're kind of appealing to our flesh as well because they're excusing self-pity. They're making us feel like, oh, I have every right to focus on myself, feel sorry for myself, turn against other people in my life who aren't seeing all of my needs, and just adopt a very selfish attitude. And when that is excused in our lives by a friend, that further fosters their dangerous influence over us. Amy Carmichael described it like this, there is a kind of sympathy that weakens and a kind of sympathy that braces, or that means to strengthen, which of the two that we have to offer depends on how much we know of the spirit of our Lord. I have ceased to ask for easy ways for those I love most dearly. I ask instead for a conquering faith, for strength, and for the blessing of peace. Many think of comfort as if it were gentle kind of soothing and nothing else, but the Oxford dictionary gives the original meaning as to strengthen. I have heard one who was, as she thought, comforting another, say, how hard it is for you. But that sort of talk does not raise up, it pushes down. It is weakening, not strengthening. God's comfort is never weakening. He leaves the soul he comforts stronger to fight, braver to suffer, grateful, not sorry for itself, keen to go on, not to yield. God make us all comfortors in that strong sense of the word, his fellow comfortors. I think that is one of the best descriptions of true Godly comfort I have ever read or heard. It is so beautiful to think that comfort according to the biblical definition and the actual definition of the word is to strengthen. It's not to weaken. It's not to create this mushy sort of poor you. Your life is so hard. That is actually not real comfort. Real comfort brings spiritual strength. It's godly exhortation. Things like, you can do all things through Christ, you strengthen zeal. And do not think it's strange when you suffer trials of many kinds, and God will never leave you or forsake you. Of course, a godly exhorter will offer empathy, and not just steamroll over the fact that our emotions are there and they're very real. And we grieve and we go through sorrow and suffering. It's not like we ignore the emotional part of it, but at the end of the day, a godly exhorter will strengthen us with the powerful promises and truths of the word of God. And the goal of a true godly exhorter is to cling and fasten our soul to Jesus Christ and to ground us in his truth. Because a true godly exhorter knows that the only way we'll actually have strength to go on, strength to live that impossible life that God has called us to live is if we tap into the enabling grace of God, which can equip us to live lives that we cannot live in our own strength. That's what godly exhortation does. Galatians 6.2 says that we are to bear one another's burdens in order to fulfill the law of Christ. This is such an important part of true godly friendship. And it means being able and willing to take other people's burdens seriously in prayer in practical help and in godly support and in truth. But it does not mean sponsoring self-pity or emotional weakness or spiritual weakness in another person. So we need to understand what it actually means to bear one another's burdens, to love others the way Christ loves us. It's so interesting to me when Jesus was telling his disciples that they were going to face misunderstanding and persecution, he didn't give them a poor you message. He said, "If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you." It's very matter of fact statement like, this is just the reality of what it means to walk the narrow of the way of the cross. He didn't say, "Oh, and this is gonna happen and I just feel so terrible for you and this is just awful and you should just feel so sorry for yourself when this happens." He says, "No, I've given you everything you need to walk through misunderstanding and reproach. And in fact, it's a sign that you are walking with me and it's something you should celebrate and rejoice in even though it's difficult." So that is a total 180 perspective from what we often think of comfort as being. We do not need a poor you message when we are walking through difficult seasons. And we don't need friends who try to meet all of our emotional needs and become an emotional crush for us to constantly lean on. Empathy and understanding is wonderful and needed, but we do not need to be given an excuse to wallow and self-pity or to turn to a friend or another person instead of making Jesus Christ our first turn. Instead, we need friends who will exhort us to tap into the amazing grace of God. Because like I said, his grace can enable us to do what we could never do in our own strength. We need friends who will remind us what a friend we have in Jesus. We need friends who will point us toward truth and not pull us towards themselves. When I read stories of persecuted Christians or Christians who have walked through tremendous suffering, I am always inspired when these Christians encourage each other in those bracing and strengthening truths of Scripture. I remember hearing about Christians who were suffering. This was way long time ago in Christian history when they were being martyred, they were being tortured, they were being killed for their faith. And they would say as they would pass each other in the street or as they would see each other maybe on the way to prison, they would say this phrase, "Vale la Pena," which means it is worth the pain. They didn't say, "Oh, I'm so sorry you're going through that. This is really terrible. This is really awful." They said, "It is worth the pain because Jesus is worth it." And his grace is sufficient. That is incredible comfort in the midst of tremendous suffering. Amy Carmichael had a good friend that was very, very sick and at the end of Amy's life, the last 20 years of her life, she was crippled and confined to her bed. So these two women shared a wall. They had their bedrooms near each other and they were both confined to bed. And every day they would share each other kind of like yell across the hall to each other. These incredibly encouraging reminders from scripture, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, et cetera, et cetera. And it was through those words of exhortation that both of these women walked through suffering with victory rather than with defeat. Jew exhortation does not just use spiritual sounding language to flower up human comfort or human wisdom because a lot of times, a groomer or a counterfeit comforter will cloak their language in scripture, in prayer, in spiritual words, which can cause us to trust them or assume that their approach is correct and healthy. True exhortation actually lifts high the name of Jesus and encourages us to run to his feet, to turn to his word, to build our own relationship with him stronger to gain everything we need from him. An emotionally healthy friend is going to always have that attitude that John the Baptist had that says, "I must decrease so that he would increase in your life. I am only a friend of the bridegroom when the bridegroom is seen, this joy of mine is fulfilled. Not when I am seen, when the bridegroom is seen." And an emotionally healthy friend will not cling tightly to you or to the friendship, but will always hold it with an open hand and emotionally healthy friends, greatest joy will be seeing you thrive in your relationship with Jesus and also will cheer on other important relationships in your life, your friends, your family, other people in the body of Christ. Now the difference between an emotionally healthy friend and a counterfeit confeder is often very subtle, especially at first. Grueaming is becoming more and more common in the church because predators, whether their motive is abuse or simply demonic control over someone else, counterfeit confederers or groomers will often creep in and play out the role of a trust where the honorable Christian in order to gain our trust. And I have to say that even in my own life as a Christian leader, I have been deceived for periods of my life by someone who came into my life under the pretense of being a godly friend but had ulterior motives for befriending me. And yet in all those situations, God did open my eyes and gave me discernment, but I have made mistakes in trusting people I shouldn't have trusted because they were being used by the enemy in an attempt to bring distraction or division or destruction into my life, family or ministry. Now that is not something to be paranoid or fearful about, but it is important to know the warning signs when a counterfeit confeder or an emotionally unhealthy friend is seeking to tie us to them. And like I said in the last episode, when you know the word of God and you spend time in his presence and build your life around him, you will be much quicker to have discernment when a person with ulterior motives is seeking to gain control over you. But I just wanna offer a few quick warning signs that can help you more quickly discern a counterfeit confeder from a truly godly exorter because the difference can be very subtle. Now again, this is not an exhaustive list, nor do all of these things have to be present. in order for a friendship to be emotionally and healthy, but if even one of these things are present, it can be a red flag, and it probably means it's time to step back and to be a lot more guarded in that friendship. And one of the first warning signs is exclusivity, and that would be small comments or actions that imply that you and this person have a special connection that others don't understand, that you quote, "get each other in ways that others don't," and that other people need to be kept at a distance in order to protect the special bond that the two of you share. And that was the situation with the two girls that I described earlier. It was a very exclusive friendship with this idea that we understand each other, we have something special, other people just don't get it, and that's a warning sign because that's not the fruit of a godly friendship that is seeking to bring unity in the body of Christ and point you back to Jesus. I had a friend who did this to me once. She appealed to the fact that both of us were in ministry and that other people who were not in ministry just wouldn't get it. And that just appealed to a need that I had in my life 'cause I often felt misunderstood or that I couldn't really, people couldn't relate to my life in ministry. And yet the friendship became more and more exclusive, pushing other people away and having this exclusive friendship between the two of us. And I began to realize that this is not truly the fruit of a godly friendship. Another warning sign would be dependence. We talked about this earlier, but if there are comments or actions that create a sense of need toward that other person, where they imply that they meet needs in your life, emotionally or physically, that others in your life just aren't able to meet. They imply that they see your needs in ways that other people don't. And they imply that they have special insights into your life, that they are the one you need in order to feel emotionally okay. This is emotional dependence. And again, one of the ways you can tell is that you feel like you cannot function without them and you're always thinking about them and you're running all of your thoughts and decisions and life choices through this great of what are they going to think and are they going to approve, et cetera. So when you have an unhealthy emotional dependence, you actually cling to them even stronger than your relationship with Christ and stronger than other really important relationships in your life like parents, family members, close godly friends, et cetera. So dependence is not the fruit of a godly friendship. Secrecy is another warning sign. Now this doesn't always happen in an emotionally unhealthy friendship, but oftentimes it is something that creeps into an emotionally unhealthy friendship. Whenever you have to have secret communications, secret conversations, secret meetings, and keep your special relationship hidden from others in any way, that's a warning sign that something is wrong. This is not how the body of Christ is meant to function. And a secret friendship is usually a sign that there is something to hide. We are called as Christians to walk in the light, as Jesus was in the light, and keeping things hidden in darkness where in shadow is not a sign of emotional health. Now I've done other episodes where we talked about guarding the secret and keeping things private in our walk with God, but that is very different from a friendship that is shrouded in secrecy, and that is definitely a warning sign of an emotionally unhealthy friend. And then the last warning sign I want to point out in this episode is gossip. We're going to be diving more into that later, but just as a starting point, an emotionally unhealthy friend tends to gossip about others or criticize others to you, even while they come across as the perfect comforter to you. We talked about this last time on the episode where we explored flattery versus true encouragement. One of the ways you can spot a flatterer is that they often build you up, but put others down. A true godly encourager will not put others down. Everything they say is with the goal of godly edification, building others up instead of tearing them down. A lot of times a groomer will take it a step farther and even criticize others for the way they're not meeting your needs. For example, things like, I see you're under a lot of pressure and it bothers me that others in your life are putting that kind of pressure on you. Or I see you really need encouragement and I don't understand why these other people in your life can't see that you need encouragement, et cetera. So I would caution you to be very watchful of any form of gossip or criticism that is creeping into a friendship because a truly godly friend seeks to bring unity and peace in relationships within the body and within other key relationships in your life, not suspicion, grievance and discord. Now these warning signs are all negative concepts of an emotionally unhealthy friend, but I want to leave you with a few positive reminders of the beauty of truly healthy Christ-centered friends from scripture because when you compare and contrast God's pattern with the counterfeit, God's pattern is so life-giving and refreshing. Proverbs 27, 17, "Iron sharpens, Iron so another person sharpens another." There's that concept of building them up in spiritual strength. Proverbs 13, 20, "Walk with the wise and become wise for a companion of fool suffers harm. When you're walking with the wise, the fruit in your life is godly wisdom." Proverbs 17, 17, "A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity." John 15, 12 to 13, Jesus says, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life. For his friends, you are my friends, if you do whatever I command you." When someone is truly walking with Christ, the fruit of their lives is that they learn to love others as he loves selflessly, sacrificial, and faithfully. My hope and prayer is that we will learn to surround ourselves with Christ like friends. And if we don't have Christ like friends in our life, it's something we can pray for. It's a prayer that God loves to answer. And also that we will seek to become Christ like in our friendship with others. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode. If you'd like to go deeper into any of these truths, visit us at setapart.org. We have many great free resources there. I pray you have a blessed and Christ-centered week.