How many close friends do you have in your life today? Take a minute and count them. Do you have more or less than you did ten years ago?

One recent study confirms what you might already suspect: many more of us have fewer good friends than we once did. In 1990, just 3% of respondents reported having no close friends. Thirty years later, that number has quadrupled to 12%. In 1990, one third said they had ten or more close friends. That number has now shrunk to just over ten percent. Nearly 90% cannot name a friend for each of their fingers. It’s not the only study to come to the same unsettling conclusion: Despite the tidal wave of new ways to connect and communicate with one another, we’re getting lonelier.

And that loneliness stifles human life. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). If we try to live and work alone, we’ll stumble and fall alone. And when we fall alone, we won’t have the encouragement, correction, and support we need to get back up and press through our failures, sorrows, and trials.

No matter how many years it’s been, no matter how busy you feel, no matter how few your options are, no matter how much it costs you, you still need good friends — yes, even you.

So why do so many of us have so few of them?

Three Great Walls to Climb

It’s never been easier to make new friends and connect with old ones, so what’s hindering and disrupting these relationships? Drew Hunter, author of Made for Friendship, wisely puts his finger on three major obstacles we face today:

Three aspects of modern culture create unique barriers to deep relationships: busyness, technology, and mobility. . . . These unique barriers can weave together in a very isolating way for us. They encircle us like a rope barrier and keep true friendship out of reach. We may overpower one or two of these strands, but as the saying goes, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (30)

What keeps us from meaningful friendships? Busyness, because we fill our schedules so full that friendship feels like a luxury we just can’t afford. Technology, because while it allows for a lot more moments of “connection,” the crumbs it offers leads us to pretend we’re more meaningfully connected than we really are (and leave us starving for more). Mobility, because it’s harder to build real, lasting friendships in places where people are frequently moving away and moving on.

Those three emerging barriers to friendship certainly resonate with my experience over the last thirty years, and accurately explain some of the challenges we face in pursuing friendship in the twenty-first century. So how might followers of Christ overcome the hurdles and find some good friends?

1. Cadence: Live at the pace of friendship.

When did we become too busy for friends? At a cultural level, it’s difficult to trace the many factors (work from home, instant messaging and social media, on-demand delivery and entertainment, explosion of youth activities, and more). At a personal level, the disruption often happens somewhere between college graduation and our first child’s newborn diapers. The adult demands of work and family swiftly swell and crowd out the margin we used to have. The time with friends that used to cost us next to nothing now seems far too expensive.

Rather than assuming friendship is simply a casualty of higher callings, what if we assumed that friendship was still vital to those higher callings? Because it is. “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Of course, if you’re married, your spouse is one valuable voice, but he or she can’t be the only voice. Whether married or single, we need others from outside the home to sing (or shout) reality into our hearts and homes. In other words, we need friends.

“To experience friendship with fellow humans, we need to live at a pace that is human.”

And to experience friendship with fellow humans, we need to live at a pace that is human (which, ironically, may increasingly put us out of step with society). Instead of constantly scrolling by one another, what if we slowed down enough to see and hear and focus on the person in front of us? What if we practiced hospitality, not just with our kitchens and living rooms, but with our time and attention?

How different our lives might be if they were marked by something like the togetherness of the early church:

All who believed were together and had all things in common. . . . And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. (Acts 2:44–47)

Their lives were beautifully full, but not with the tasks, emails, and apps that dominate our days. No, their lives were full with people — with one another. Life was slower in many ways, and yet far more productive for being slow: “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

2. Presence: Find time and space to share.

Technology is not necessarily an enemy of friendship. It can be an unprecedented blessing when employed wisely. Imagine just how much previous generations would have given to be able to talk in real-time, even once, with a far-away loved one (much less actually see them on a screen). The problems emerge when we lean too much on technology — when it becomes a substitute for, rather than supplement to, physical presence. Every human needs food, water, shelter, and regular time with other humans.

The apostle Paul used the technology available in his day to communicate with his brothers and sisters in the faith, but he knew that writing was no replacement for eye contact: “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you — that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:11–12). He knew there were graces that ink and paper couldn’t carry. There was a whole class of encouragement reserved for living rooms and dining tables. He knew that something critical and intangible happens when two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus in the same space.

This doesn’t mean friends boycott technology. It does mean we acknowledge the weaknesses and limitations of technology (even the best technology), and love one another accordingly. A good place to start might be to quickly audit your current friendships and ask roughly what percentage of your interactions are physical or digital. The results will vary for people with different personalities in different circumstances and stages of life, but for every stage, circumstance, and temperament there should be some consistent, meaningful presence. It is worth fighting for more regular time to be face to face with at least a few good friends.

3. Permanence: Rediscover the value of staying.

Lastly, perhaps the largest hurdle of the three: mobility. It’s never been easier to pick up and move, which means it’s often much, much harder to find and keep long-term friendships. Just think for a minute about how many of your friendships in just the last two years have been disrupted by some major life change and the accompanying move. We’re the goodbye generation.

The depth of friendships our souls need won’t happen overnight. These gardens of trust require years, maybe decades, of patient attention and tending. So how do we make and keep friends in a day of so many goodbyes? The first thing to say may be hard for many of us to hear: rediscover the value of staying put.

How many people do you know in your circles who would forgo a better-paying, more-satisfying job in a more appealing city for the sake of Christian friendships and community? Building the kind of friendships that really matter and bear fruit requires the kind of sacrifices fewer today are willing to make. In the early church, and for most of history, this kind of permanence was simply a given. Picking up and moving was too costly. Today, permanence is becoming a discipline and a virtue. We might wonder, How many who are uprooting and leaving now will eventually come to realize what they lost and wish they had chosen church and friendships over convenience and job opportunities?

Some friendships, however, will survive moves and time zones, through some serious creativity and persistence, but very few will thrive. A few of my best friends today were once down-the-road friends (or even share-a-bathroom-and-a-kitchen friends), but are now several-states-over friends. We’re not as close as we once were, but we do what we can to stay in touch. The apostle Paul, for one, was a faithful long-distance friend, though it seems he was always planning a visit. He writes to those he knows well, loves more, and yet can’t walk over and see anymore:

“For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).
“[Timothy] has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you” (1 Thessalonians 3:6).
“As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Timothy 1:4).

“However faithful our faraway friends are, we all need down-the-road friends.”

Long-distance friendships are possible, and can be precious, but they are a little like walking uphill, requiring extra effort with every step (like writing twenty-eight chapters to the church in Corinth). They can’t be our only close friendships. However faithful our faraway friends are, we need down-the-road friends. And hopefully a few of them are down the road for the long haul.

4. Substance: Brave the depths of conversation.

Busyness, technology, mobility — those are three real and developing hurdles to friendship. We should all be aware of them and make some plan for clearing them. As I wrestled with each of them, though, I couldn’t help seeing a fourth major barrier, one that is by no means modern: triviality.

How many of our potential friendships — real, meaningful, durable friendships — have died on the rocks of sports, shows, or headline news? How many conversations began and ended on the paper thin surface of life? How often was God left out completely? The greatest challenge to friendship today may not be our schedules, phones, or moving trucks, but just how easy it is to peacefully float along above the rich depths of real friendship.

Social media can certainly aggravate the issue, but this temptation isn’t new. Satan has always been seducing us into the shallows of superficiality and distracting us from the depths of friendship. So how do we wade deeper? Through courageous, Christ-exalting intentionality: “Let us consider” — really consider — “how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25).

If we commit to this kind of reflection, this kind of commitment, this kind of encouragement and correction, this kind of love, real friendship will emerge and endure. But we will need to be brave enough to go there, to spend more of our conversations in the deep end.

So, if you find yourself among the overwhelming majority of people without enough good friends, slow down enough to find some, make some regular time to be in the same room, fight harder to stick together longer, and then consistently press through the trivial to the more meaningful and spiritual. Pursue and keep the kinds of friends who stir your heart and life to better know and enjoy Jesus Christ.

Early morning hours are precious. The house is still, quiet. The aroma of coffee wafts from the steaming mug. A single lamp illuminates the chair and table. Here is a sanctuary, a peaceful place of communion between a man and his God.

And yet on many days, it is anything but peaceful. Rather than quiet contemplation, I find myself battling on my knees against a persistent and pernicious straying of the heart. The prayer is not that of the demonized boy’s father: Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief” (though I too have prayed such words). Instead, I pray, “Lord, I desire; help my erring desires.”

While striving to meditate on the steadfast love and faithfulness and eternal goodness of God, I find that other concerns arrest my attention: anxious thoughts about how my work will be received, a nagging fear that somehow I’m just not doing enough, questions about what my coworkers think of me, jealousy over the success of others. A long list of anxious thoughts grip my mind and lead me away from the one offering rest and peace, satisfaction and joy. Here lies the battle. The straying thoughts reveal what’s driving my heart this morning: desire for the fleeting approval of man, not the eternal good.

One misaligned desire would be a significant battle by itself; this is a wide and diverse war. Fears about parenting failures reveal desires to be self-sufficient. Worry about a medical condition (whether minor or life-threatening) may indicate a greater love for this present life than the never-ending one to come. Pride fails to acknowledge that our plans are in the hand of the Lord, and reveals an arrogant boasting rooted in the desire to order life according to our own design. My sanctuary, it turns out, is also a battlefield.

Disordered Hearts

The struggle to rightly order our desires lies at the heart of each Christian’s daily walk. Our redeemed hearts, still twisted by sin, simply do not function as they ought. In general, we have no problem desiring. We do have serious problems desiring rightly. Our hearts are disordered, and so we frequently spin out days chasing small and fleeting ends that fail to satisfy. We grow weary and despondent in our Sisyphean pursuits, and we wonder where our first love has gone.

In a meditation on Psalm 119:97–104, the late John Webster (1955–2016) describes the reordering of affections as “one of the most weighty claims [of] the Christian gospel” (Christ Our Salvation, 6). He argues that the affections are “the fundamental loves which govern us and determine the shape of our lives . . . [the] part of us through which we attach ourselves to things outside of ourselves. . . . [They are] the engines of our attitudes and actions” (7). In other words, each and every day, what we love and desire determines what we set ourselves to pursue.

‘Nature Abhors a Vacuum’

God made us, each and every one of us, to pursue. He gave us hearts that desire. Our pursuits — what we desire and strive toward — reveal our hearts because behind our pursuits lie affections. Imagine a string tied between the desire in your heart and each object you run after. If you pause long enough to tug on the strings, you will unearth what lies (and pulls) in the hidden recesses of your heart. And far too often, those hidden recesses are not filled with pure love for God; they contain the kind of covetousness that leads to strife (see James 4:1–4).

Sometimes, in the battle with such wayward affections, the temptation to quell desire rises to the forefront. “If only I could put the desire for X to death, then I would walk in freedom.” Erasing that disorderly affection seems like the key to holiness. And so we aim (rightfully, I should say) to put sin to death (Romans 8:13). We fight the battle with X and, by God’s grace, win. Then we stop.

Consider a knight on the warpath. He has heard of a dragon who reigns over a castle and keeps a king’s daughter locked up as a prisoner in the tallest tower. With great courage, he risks life and limb to face the dragon in open combat. Eventually he emerges from the battle victorious (though certainly wounded and a bit more well-done). What does he do next? He mounts his warhorse and returns home. No, good stories don’t end that way — and for good reason.

Everyone recognizes that the knight has won only half the battle. The princess still needs rescuing. If he leaves her locked up and the castle vacant, another winged, fire-breathing worm will soon take the place of the first. So too, the man who cleaned the house after the unclean spirit left suddenly finds himself fighting the original spirit again, plus seven more (Matthew 12:44–45). The man needs to fill up the house, not leave it empty; the knight needs to actually rescue the princess.

Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum” (The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, 41). What did he mean? It does no good to merely take away a man’s sinful affection. By God’s design, man cannot be affectionless. To attempt to remove all that stirs his heart, in the name of pure and holy living, would be an “unnatural violence” to his soul (44).

Let’s apply Chalmers’s insight to my early-morning battle. As I analyze the internal struggle, I see how my worry over how I might be received reveals a desire to please men. Behind my desire is an unhealthy craving for the kind of recognition, applause, and affirmation I might receive from my coworkers. I might pray in that moment for God to remove that desire from my heart — but the struggle doesn’t stop there. Affection cannot merely be put to death; it must be remade.

‘Seek the Things Above’

Paul wrote to the Colossian believers about the emptiness of merely negative commands. Seemingly powerful and wise in the fight against sin (at least initially), “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). We cannot stop at mere negation. For this reason, Paul gives the Colossians a positive command: “Seek the things that are above. . . . Set your minds on things that are above” (Colossians 3:1–2). Do not expect denial, by itself, to lead to holiness. We need redirection.

God created us with the capacity for affections, and it’s a good design. To attempt to merely get rid of sinful desires (and not redirect the heart) is to deny our very nature. Chalmers understood this, which is why his little sermon continues to resonate with readers. “We have already affirmed,” he wrote, “how impossible it were for the heart . . . to cast the world away from it and thus reduce it to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one” (49).

The pursuit of holiness has to be just that: a pursuit. And to pursue something means that we desire it, we want it, we set our minds and order our days to have it. Left to ourselves, such a task is hopeless. Twisted and corrupt trees do not produce good fruit. But we haven’t been left to ourselves. The Lord has raised us up to new life (Colossians 3:1). He has given us his Spirit. And he is at work to detach our affections from their empty, death-producing objects and reattach them to their proper treasures. We do not enter the fray alone or without hope.

Test, Seek, Pray, Fight

What might this good battle look like each day? We can sketch the fight in four steps: test, seek, pray, fight.

TEST

What captures your heart today? What do you find yourself aiming for? What do your recent actions and decisions reveal about what you love? Start pulling on those strings. Try to unearth the loves behind and beneath those strings. Before you engage the enemy, you have to know who the enemy is. What do you find yourself repeatedly struggling against? Unfortunately, the desire for others’ approval didn’t simply go away that morning. I still find myself seeking to put it to death (and quite frequently).

Honest self-reflection, while important, can’t be the only means to putting twisted desires to death. We need communities of brothers and sisters around us who know us well. Because we’ve cultivated strong relationships of trust, these fellow soldiers have the freedom to tell us when a path we’re pursuing leads to death.

SEEK

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1). The apostle’s command requires us to actively set our hearts on other, heavenly objects. We must come to see them as more worthy of pursuit than the ones that tempt us.

Early-morning meditation has been the single best practice I have learned over the years (and one that countless believers have practiced throughout history). Psalm 90:14 sets the agenda: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Finding our delight in the Lord orients and redirects our hearts. When we have tasted and seen the goodness of God, the fool’s gold of worldly pursuits grows tarnished in our eyes (1 Peter 2:1–3). Where do we see his goodness displayed? In the word as we open it with fresh eyes of faith.

PRAY

While prayer accompanies every step in this battle, concerted effort comes during and after time in the word. “Lord, you’ve shown me your goodness and character this morning; grant belief and desire for more. By your Spirit, mold my desires to conform to your goodness, your holiness, your majestic worth.” These steps of prayer and seeking, like testing, can (and arguably should) also take place with our local church. The Lord uses fellow saints to help us see more of him in the word. And God will use the prayers of other saints to strengthen and encourage right thinking and feeling in our hearts and minds.

FIGHT

“Put to death,” writes Paul. Them’s fightin’ words. Just because we taste and see the goodness of God doesn’t mean our battle is over. Sinful desires remain, and they reveal themselves throughout the day in our attitudes, actions, and words. Paul calls us to the strenuous life, actively working to kill corrupt desires in the hope that God himself works within us to cause conformity to the image of Christ (Philippians 2:12–13).

So, test and seek, praying at all times, and then fight. And fight alongside friends, because wars like these are lost alone.

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.