When we understand that honesty is the hardest part of overcoming addiction, this approach makes more sense to us. Yes, there are a myriad of steps they need to take after this. But that shouldn’t cause us to rush our loved one through the first, intimidating step of being honest with God, self, and others.

There is nothing easy about overcoming an addiction. As we explore what would be the hardest part of this process, I want to be careful not to minimize other parts of the journey. But when you talk to people who were once slaves to substance abuse and are now experiencing significant freedom, a common refrain emerges when you ask: What was the hardest part of your journey?
Before I offer an answer to this question, take a moment to reflect. What is your best guess?

Physical withdrawal symptoms
Loneliness that comes from severing ties with friends who are also fellow addicts
Figuring out what to do with the time formerly invested into the addiction
Learning new, healthy forms of entertainment
Managing the fallout of emotional and financial stresses caused by addiction

These are all real and all difficult factors. But they are often not the hardest. Actually, these challenge all come after what is commonly the hardest part of overcoming addiction.
So, what is the hardest part? Being honest. There is so much to be honest about when you’re overcoming addiction.

You must be honest with yourself—acknowledge the problem is “that bad,” that you need help, that the idea that you “could quit if you wanted to” is a lie, that your friends and family were being compassionate when they brought concerns to you, etc.
You must be honest with God—acknowledge that you desperately need his help, that his ways are better than your ways, that he isn’t “old fashioned” or “controlling” but liberating and life-giving, that it’s not good for you to try to overcome your struggle alone, etc.
You must be honest with others—acknowledge that you have lied to them, that your actions have impacted their life, that they were right, and you refused to listen, that you need their help, that what you used to call “help” was enabling, etc.

Why Honesty Is So Hard
When it comes to something as monumental as overcoming addiction, it is often the guilt and shame that comes with being honest that most impedes our efforts to engage in the process of change.
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Having seven questions each with five levels of depth can sound mechanical. You don’t build friendships like you stack Legos following the instructions to create what’s on the cover of the box. The seven questions are intended to help you to always have something to talk about. The five levels are meant to help you identify what area of a friendship is least developed and allow you to be intentional. If you have that level of awareness, go with where the conversation takes you.

Building meaningful friendships can be difficult, especially in a culture that is lonelier and more disconnected than ever. In Transformative Friendships: 7 Questions to Deepen Any Relationship, counselor Brad Hambrick encourages readers to develop new rhythms, habits, and lifestyles that will shape and grow their relationships, both with casual acquaintances and closer friends.
In this interview, we talk to Brad about the importance of building friendships and how doing so can transform your life.
Q: TRANSFORMATIVE FRIENDSHIPS EXPLORES SEVEN QUESTIONS THAT YOU BELIEVE CAN DEEPEN ANY RELATIONSHIP. WHAT ARE THOSE SEVEN QUESTIONS?
Hopefully, it’s not intimidating to imagine yourself asking a friend these questions or being asked them by a friend. In Transformative Friendships, we unpack how these simple questions can transform casual acquaintances into “iron sharpens iron” friendships that become dearer than family (Proverbs 27:17).

What’s your story?
What’s good?
What’s hard?
What’s bad?
What’s fun?
What’s stuck?
What’s next?

Q: THREE OF THESE QUESTIONS SEEM TO LINK TOGETHER—WHAT’S GOOD? WHAT’S HARD? WHAT’S BAD? WHY ARE EACH OF THESE QUESTIONS IMPORTANT AND HOW DO THEY EACH HELP IN DEEPENING OUR FRIENDSHIPS?
From a Christian perspective, this invites us to explore our identity in Christ (what’s good), suffering (what’s hard), and sin (what’s bad). In different Christian traditions, one of these questions may be emphasized more than the others. But if friendships are going to have a holistic and balanced influence on our life, then we need to emphasize all three.
Q: IS IT BETTER TO HAVE A FEW REALLY CLOSE FRIENDS OR MANY MORE CASUAL FRIENDS?
That’s a good question, but I think it’s better not to think in terms of either-or. There are benefits to having really close friendships, but if all our friendships were “deep” that would be exhausting and crowd out other life responsibilities. Casual friendships also enrich our life, but if all our friendships were “shallow” we would feel lonely in a socially crowded life.
One of the things I want to do in Transformative Friendships is help people see the value of both and learn how to be intentional in taking a few of their casual friendships to a deeper level.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE FACTORS THAT MAKE HAVING GOOD FRIENDSHIPS HARDER THAN IT SHOULD BE?
This can vary from context to context. I currently live in a big city where people move in and out all the time. The frequency with which people move make friendships feel temporary. But I grew up in a small town where being vulnerable felt riskier because everyone there would know you for the rest of your life.
There is also the factor of social media. Social media allows us to polish our image as we post the best pictures and narrate them in our preferred way. Because of this lots of people know a lot about us, but we don’t really feel known. We put out curated information about ourselves, but that can impede cultivating an actual relationship because of the limited engagement. I’m not against social media. I just think we need to be more aware of how it impacts who we call a “friend.”
Q: AS YOU’VE SERVED AS A COUNSELOR AND WORKED TO CREATE CHURCH-BASED COUNSELING MODELS, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT PEOPLE’S RELIANCE ON COUNSELING OVER FRIENDSHIP?
Many people begin to rely on counseling as a friend-substitute. Counseling is where they are “real” and talk about what’s “hard.” They think if they’re engaging in counseling (which I’m all for) that friendships can just focus on what is “fun” and “good.” The result is that their friendships become more superficial. Ideally, when counseling is needed, it would be a place to talk about and tame the hard parts of life in a way that makes those subjects more approachable in their closer friendships. An indication that someone is ready to graduate from counseling is when he or she feels like they can talk about their hardships in their friendships.
Q: HOW DOES TRANSFORMATIVE FRIENDSHIPS FIT INTO THE CHURCH-BASED COUNSELING SERIES THAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN?
The Church-Based Counseling series is primarily about helping churches create counseling ministries that are relationally sustainable, liability wise, and church compatible. But I didn’t want churches to think, “Now that we have a counseling ministry, that is where we send all the hurting people.” That would make the church less of what God intends it to be.
Transformative Friendships is meant to be a resource that strengthens friendships in a church. That should serve a counseling ministry, if a church chooses to create one, in two ways. First, it helps those who are reaching out for counseling not to over rely on counseling. A counseling ministry cannot and should not privatize discipleship. Second, it creates a relational context for those receiving counseling that makes counseling more effective.
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We see that even when the godliest care givers – the half brother of Jesus himself – gives counsel divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, this doesn’t happen. The ultimate hope for suffering happens in heaven when Jesus will wipe away every tear (Rev. 21:4). As we care for one another amid our suffering, we offer temporal hope anchored in this ultimate hope.

Passage – James 5:13-20
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Commentary
Imagine you are writing a letter to a friend after a major hardship. Maybe it’s after a long recovery from a major injury or grief after the loss of a spouse after adultery. After you spoke to the specific challenges that your friend is facing, how would you conclude your letter? What would the last paragraph be about?
In these final verses, we get to see how James concludes his letter to his friends facing adversity. We’ve traced the journey of these friends from Jerusalem through persecution to becoming refugees to the hardships they have in their new city. We’ve eavesdropped on James’s pastoral care for them amid these hardships. Now, we’re coming to final words of care for them.
Prayer, Suffering, and Community (v. 13-15)
James begins with a trilogy of questions. First, “Is anyone among you suffering?” James entire letter has been about this question. But oddly, he doesn’t summarize his counsel to them. That’s what we expect from a conclusion: a summary. Instead, James simply says, “Pray.”
In this, we see that no action plan or accurate theology can replace an honest conversation with God. Amid suffering, God doesn’t primarily give us answers. Instead, God offers himself, a relationship, availability through prayer, and a reminder that we are never alone in hard times. As we care for another, need to remember that answers for suffering – to the degree they exist – are empty without relationship.
Second, “Is anyone cheerful?” This question catches us off guard. Nothing about this book has been cheerful. James wrote this letter in the dull tones suffering, not the vibrant tones of joy. But this is an important reminder: suffering does not negate cheerfulness. As Christian we can be honest about hard times and still smile. Redemptive stories still have dark chapters.
The response of praise for God’s faithfulness amid the hardships of life is a form of rebellion against suffering. It declares, “Suffering doesn’t win! Suffering doesn’t own me!” These believers, rebuilding their lives in a new city they fled to escape persecution, could still give thanks for salvation, good friends, and each marker of their new life coming together.
Third, “Is anyone among you sick?” If cheerfulness caught us off guard, asking about their health may feel completely random. It’s not. James is familiar with human experience and realizes the exhaustion of prolonged suffering results in us getting sick more often. To endure suffering our body pulls energy from other “departments.” Our immune system is one of those departments. By asking, James shows God cares for our bodily weaknesses that get worse in hard times.
James’s response to this question is more developed than the first two. It has three points that echo earlier themes from his letter.

“Let him call for the elders of the church,” reminds us not to suffer alone.
“Let them pray over him,” reminds us that God cares, and we should talk to him.
“Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,” reminds us to remain active against the impact of our suffering on our lives.

Then James develops a parallel between sickness and sin. It might be easy to mistake this to mean that a Christian who prays with faith will never get sick. Instead, James’s is saying that God cares for your suffering (sickness) as much as your sinfulness (salvation). Trusting God with our suffering reveals that we learning to entrust all our lives to God.
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James focuses on not grumbling or judging. In effect, he’s saying, “Don’t take your frustration out on your innocent companions. Yes, times are hard. But when we succumb to rudeness towards our co-sufferers, we multiply our hardship by isolation.” There is an important message in this emphasis: being the victim of oppression does not excuse what we do to others. 

Passage – James 5:7-12
7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
12 But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
Commentary
Think of a time when you were relationally hurt or emotionally upset. What was one of the hardest things for you to do? Chances are, “sit still” is near the top of the list. Being hurt and upset energizes us. We feel an innate need to move, to talk, to do something. We want things to be different, so anything other than prompt, decisive action feels like “doing nothing.”
Often, the result of hurt-fueled activity is to take the situation from bad to worse. We say things we haven’t thought through. We do things we regret. We blow up at people who had nothing to do with our hurt and then feel bad for hurting them.
Facing the challenges of post-hurt temptation is what this passage is all about. As we’ve seen, James’s readers had been hurt in many ways. In these verses, James turns his attention to helping his friends avoid the regret that comes from post-suffering temptations.
Patience Isn’t Passive (v. 7-8)
When James says, “therefore” in verse seven, he is referencing back to his pronouncement of God’s promised judgement on those who harmed his readers. We need to be careful not to read this passage like a generic pontification on the themes of patience, farming and suffering. James is not writing random proverbs about life; he is writing a letter to his friends.
As they heard of God’s judgement against their oppressors, their question had to be, “Okay, we’re glad God won’t overlook our oppression, but how are we to respond now?” James says, “Be patient (v. 7).” To which their inevitable reply would be, “How long should we be patient?” And James answers, “Until the coming of the Lord (v. 7).” Our response is to interpret this as a hyper-spiritual way of saying forever.
But it is a misperception of what it means to be patient that can make James’s response seem off-putting. If we mistake patience for passivity, it is as if James is saying, “Do nothing. Take it until Jesus returns.” We would be right to dislike this counsel.
To help us better understand what James means by “be patient,” consider the illustration he uses: a farmer patiently awaiting harvest. Anyone who knows a farmer knows that farmers are not passive. Famers plant, fertilize, weed, and tend to their crops. Farmers protect against insects and animals that would eat their crops. Farmers are highly active towards the things they can control.
But farmers are patient with regards to things they cannot control – the weather. A farmer cannot coerce the early rain to fall after the seeds are planted or the late rain that would optimize the yield. Patience towards the things that cannot be controlled is not passivity towards the things we can. Both healthy faith in God and good mental health require knowing the difference.
A fancy term for what James is describing in this passage is responsibility allocation: that is, accurately assigning responsibility for the various components of a situation to the right people.

Name and describe the situation that is distressing for you. In this passage, the situation is the pressure to produce a crop that will feed and provide for the farmer’s family.
Name the aspects of this situation that you can control. Obedience entails doing these things with a good attitude, like farmer planting and tending his crops.
Name the aspects of this situation that only other people can do.

If these people are cooperative, then trust gives them the freedom to fulfill their role.
If these people neglect or are manipulative with their responsibilities, then patience is waiting on God’s James 5:1-6 response to their actions.

Faith that honors God by actively obeying out of devotion to God, trusting good faith actors in our life, and being patient for God’s judgement against bad faith actors in our life.

Whether you’ve noticed it or not, these three notes (i.e., obedience, trust, and patience) are the melody of faith that have been playing throughout the book of James. James has cycled through these themes many times. We could summarize it this way:
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Wisdom is not a mere matching quiz between biblical principles and life situations. Biblical wisdom is the embodiment of God’s character carrying out God’s agenda redemptively in a broken world. Intelligence is no big advantage to obtaining this kind of wisdom. It is as accessible to the simple as it is the brilliant. The power of this wisdom can be unleashed by the poor as much as it can the rich, by those with little social influence as much as the social elites.

Passage – James 3:13-18
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Commentary
Imagine you’re in a group for overcoming anger. The group facilitator starts your meeting with the question, “Who is the strongest person in the world?” A few people roll their eyes at this hokey ice breaker, but still participate. Some do a quick web search for famous weightlifters and offer a few names. For a laugh, someone guesses Jesus. As a longshot, someone else guesses the current most famous athlete. The group leader doesn’t seem satisfied with any of the answers.
Once no one else has a guess, the leader says, “The person who can control their tongue.” The leader is defining power as the ability to curtail destruction and identifying the tongue as the source of the most life disruption. That is, in effect, what James does in this passage. He is going to redefine a key term: wisdom. In James 1:5, we were asked to pray for wisdom. In these verses, we will learn a lot more about what we should expect to happen within us as God answers our prayer.
What Is Wisdom? (vs. 13)
James starts this section of his letter by asking the question, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” We read this question and begin looking for valedictorians or someone with a Ph.D. James says, “That’s not what I’m talking about.” In effect, James says, “I’m not looking for a high IQ – intelligence quotient. I’m looking for a high CQ – character quotient.”
James defines wisdom as the ability to live in God’s world in a way that represents God accurately. James is going to help us see that the best way to measure biblical wisdom isn’t with a theology quiz but with a character assessment.
The wise person is the one who displays good conduct and meekness – power under control – even in hard times (v. 13). When situations are dicey, the wise person doesn’t acquiesce to a “survival of the fittest and shrewdest” mindset. The biblically wise person maintains a focus being an accurate ambassador of God’s character and agenda for that moment (2 Cor. 5:20).
In might be easy to miss that James is returning to theme that faith must be expressed in tangible actions to be genuine (v. 13). In this case, the “work” of faith is a disposition. Many of us fall into the trap of thinking that being wise is only about having right answers to hard questions and miss, as James is teaching, that wisdom is also about maintaining virtuous character in hard times.
Let’s contextualize this point for the original readers of this letter.
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Sanctification is a process. Give yourself the freedom to grow rather than expecting yourself to have arrived because you’ve understood some things. This is another way to protect your heart in the process of growing so that you experience sanctification as the gift God intends it to be.

Sanctification may come across as a fancy theological word. Don’t be intimidated. Simply put, sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus. When we embrace the gospel, God erases our sin debt, and we gain the assurance of eternity with God in heaven. That is justification. It occurs in a moment. For the rest of our earthly life, we experience progressive sanctification. It happens with ebbs and flows and in new ways during each season of life.
As we think about sanctification in light of a journey through suffering, one of the challenges for us is that we usually only think of sanctification in terms of purification from sin. Removing sin from our lives is a vital part of sanctification. We do want to see the desires of our hearts that make sin enticing shrink. The metaphor of pruning is often used for this aspect of sanctification (John 15:1–5); our sinful tendencies are cut away so that we will experience greater growth and bear more good fruit in our lives. This pruning can be painful—but even when it is, it is good, and we should thank God for it.
But if we only think of sanctification in terms of purification, we begin to believe that every unpleasant emotion that emerges from suffering reveals an idol, some aspect of life taking on a God-sized role in our heart. This belief is inaccurate, creates false guilt, and causes God to come across as an uncaring cosmic Cop. An incomplete view of sanctification makes it difficult to process grief that has stagnated in the anger phase.
So, we ask, What is the complementary aspect of sanctification that needs to be emphasized? If sanctification is the process of becoming more Christlike, the following question will point us to the answer. What verb does the Bible use to describe Jesus’ response to suffering? Consider what Hebrews 12:2 says of Jesus: “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (emphasis added).
We become like Jesus when we endure suffering in a way that resists the shame that often accompanies it. We need a view of sanctification that allows us to both be purified from sin without a condemning sense of guilt and endure suffering without a stigmatizing sense of shame. That is what it is to be Christlike in a broken world where sin and suffering are both common experiences.
We will consider both sanctification via purification and sanctification via endurance to further consolidate the progress you’ve made on this journey. Hopefully, realizing that sanctification is not just about purification will provide the emotional freedom to grow in the areas where some desires have grown too large, which is inevitably true of all of us.
Sanctification via Purification
This is where we ask the question, What has become so important to me that I have been willing to sin in response to my pain? Perhaps your drive for achievement made the setbacks resulting from your hardship unbearable, so you cheated to catch up.
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