LEGACY: Cultivating Real & Authentic Friendships | Love By Faith with Kyle & Selina Almodovar #080

Making and maintaining meaningful friendships takes intentionality, vulnerability, and divine guidance, especially as we journey through different life seasons where not everyone who starts with us remains.

• True friendship isn't measured by transaction or reciprocity but is guided by the Holy Spirit for specific purposes
• Building legacy friendships requires effort from both parties, becoming more challenging as responsibilities increase
• Making friends begins with vulnerability – putting yourself out there despite potential rejection
• Not everyone should be granted access to your inner circle; discernment is equally important
• Our identity shouldn't be defined by our friendships but solely on God and His guidance
• The ultimate goal of friendship is allowing God to use you to brighten someone else's life

If you're struggling with friends, we hope this episode challenges and encourages you to step out of your comfort zone and bring God back to the center of your relationships.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Legacy Series
• 4:22 What Makes a True Friend?
• 8:57 Learning to Be Vulnerable
• 15:28 Creating Meaningful Connections
• 22:12 Friends as Part of Your Identity
• 31:40 Legacy Through Friendship
• 35:07 Final Thoughts and Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Friends, how many of us have them.

Speaker 2: 0:03

How do we make friends?

Speaker 1: 0:04

I know for a long time we were praying hard about please help us find friends.

Speaker 2: 0:10

So we had to be better friends.

Speaker 1: 0:11

Sometimes we had to be the better friend.

Speaker 2: 0:13

But friends requires a whole separate level of just commitment.

Speaker 1: 0:19

We're not perfect people.

Speaker 2: 0:20

By any means.

Speaker 1: 0:21

But by trusting in God we learn what it takes to build a friendship a relationship and marriage that has stood the test of time.

Speaker 2: 0:30

With a Keeping it Real style. We're going to talk to you about everything everything that we've been through are going through and have overcome all by learning how to lean on God and each other in order to help you learn how to Love on.

Speaker 1: 0:45

God and each other, in order to help you learn how to love by faith.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Happy summer though.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Happy summer.

Speaker 2: 1:03

It's been like trying so hard to get it's definitely different. To get warm. And now we're here and it's just like oh, thank you, I am grateful for this heat.

Speaker 1: 1:12

I do appreciate the heat. I do like the heat. There's just a lot that comes with the heat. Don't bring the heat.

Speaker 2: 1:20

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen kitchen.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Mother nature brought the heat, and now we're all feeling it what's your biggest struggle?

Speaker 2: 1:26

dealing with the heat?

Speaker 1: 1:28

kids wanting to do everything, not realizing what heat can do to them and doing all the things. Like I'm screaming at them to drink water and they're like, why? Like, because you're gonna over, you're gonna dehydrate. You're going to dehydrate, you're going to get tired, you're going to get hazy, you're going to become lethargic. You have to drink water, it'll cool you down.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:52

I already drank my water.

Speaker 2: 1:54

No, you didn't.

Speaker 1: 1:55

No, I'm looking at you, bro. You didn't.

Speaker 2: 1:57

You didn't. There's still water there. I finally, you know, I have a confession here. I know I have a confession here. I don't drink water a lot, right, but I've been drinking a ton a ton, and it's been. I love that for you. It's been keeping me uh busy going back and forth to the restroom well, I well yes, because your body has to detox all the things oh yeah yeah, can you imagine if your body wasn't detoxed?

Speaker 1: 2:17

it's like that. It's like you don't flush your toilet you don't flush your body toilet and when you drink, it flushes the toilet.

Speaker 2: 2:25

You know, my go-to Coffee is 90% water. Okay, so I get plenty of water.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Okay, that's it. Thank you, kyle. Thank you for your TED Talk.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, y'all.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Thanks for coming to Love by Faith.

Speaker 2: 2:38

Hey.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Kyle and Selena here in this wonderful summer day. We're happy to have you guys with us for any old listeners or any new listeners.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Welcome to the party.

Speaker 1: 2:48

We're just so happy to have you here. We are entering into the month of July and in July we have a brand new series for you. You know, last month we were talking about anxiety and because July is our last series of the season, season two we wanted to kind of conclude all of this together with a beautiful series that we are calling Legacy. That's right. What you leave behind, how you affect what happens after you are gone, how you can prepare your life, your family, your marriage, for a lasting impression.

Speaker 2: 3:26

I mean, think about it. We're a Christian podcast, christian-based podcast. Yes, when we're talking about leaving a lasting legacy, we follow the one, jesus, who made the most impactful, lasting memory on the whole world to this day Still at work. So we can do our little bit in our short time here. Yes, to have an impact on people outside of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Amen. And so we're going to talk about that all month long and we are going to start this party off with our friends. With our friends, because how many of us have them? I'm really talking about friends, guys, the ones we can depend on.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Talking about friends that's great, selena, that great. So tell me about your friends.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Oh, friends.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Oh wait, what kind of friends do you have? Let's hear about this.

Speaker 1: 4:30

What kind of friends do I have? I think I have friends of all walks of life. I would like to think you know friends are so important, so valuable. It's such a thing that we talk about from the time that our kids go to school. From kindergarten, you're talking about friends. To me, I feel like you're brought up learning that friends are important, that you have to be a good friend and that keeping friends is something that matters in your life.

Speaker 1: 5:06

And so when you go through these different seasons, you go through your before Christ days, your college days, your first job phase, sorority, fraternity club phase, whatever, whatever and then you go into your church, your first church home, your second church home, whatever, your marriage. You meet all of these groups of friends and some of them stay and some of them go, and not everyone is always going to be there that you thought was initially going to be there. You have your wedding and then, 10 years later, half of the people at your wedding are probably not even around, because you've either drifted away. Seasons change, things happen, people move and friends are just constantly one of those things that is like what does it really mean? Yeah, what does friendships really mean and what does it mean to you? And so I think, in this current season where I'm at, what kind of friends do I have? I have real, recognized real. I have a lot of real friends.

Speaker 2: 6:11

That's great.

Speaker 1: 6:12

And how I know that they're real is because it doesn't matter what season we found each other.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Okay.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I can be my true whole self and I know that I am loving them in their true whole self. Yeah, and I know that I I'm loving them in their true whole self and nothing could ever change that and those are the type of friends that I have how long did it take to get to that?

Speaker 2: 6:33

where you're like this is a true friend oh man, probably like last year but I mean like from the time you you're like met them per se to get to like this is a true friend, probably last year, because what I thought was a lot of the times I thought that friendships were pretty transactional.

Speaker 1: 6:53

I thought in the past I thought, you know, I'm pouring myself out into this friendship and they're either reciprocating it or they're not pouring enough, and I used to really measure that in terms of like, well, this is not a good friend because they're not pouring into me or they're not receiving me or my own insecurities would get tangled into all of that. And it took me a very long time, and it took me a couple of losing friends, to really understand what friendship is and what they're supposed to be in my life. And so now, today's day, I believe that I learned what makes a true friend is number one. I feel like Holy Spirit keeps them there. True friend is number one. I feel like Holy Spirit keeps them there If somebody goes away in their own time and they stop communication and they stop making an effort it's not up to me and it's not my fault and it's not my choice to try to force it and bring it back.

Speaker 1: 7:59

If Holy Spirit is doing something, I have to be okay with that number one. Number two I have to choose to love them the way Christ taught me to love others. So I have to choose unconditional love Right Real.

Speaker 1: 8:13

I have to choose. I'm going to choose to love you whether you're having a bad season or not. I'm going to choose to love you whether you go away or not. I'm going to choose to love you whether you go away or not. I'm going to choose to love you whether you cancel meeting with me 11 times. I'm going to choose to be there for you because my love for you is going to be unconditional, without exception. And I had to learn that. I had to learn that because there were people in my life who were making me feel less than making me feel like I was not a good friend, making me feel like I didn't deserve their friendship, and those types of people really showed me like well, I don't need these people in my life.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I can choose to love people in my life, and if they're not choosing to love me, then then I see you and your friends, and we take, I mean, years to really just get to where you're.

Speaker 2: 9:29

You know, really comfortable to just. This is my buddy, you know. But but once it's there, yeah it's. It's more of a solid connection so it wouldn't break ever I can't say ever, but it. It's a more solid connection where if, if, like I have buddies who, if I don't talk to them for six months, I'm not questioning if they're you know, if I could text them right now I'm just going to text them and be like sure, Check out this fish I caught, check out this thing I'm doing with my kid.

Speaker 2: 9:58

And we can go back and forth like that, or they'll wait. You know, guys, sometimes we just wait until we need each other and then we say hey, can you help me with how to fix this? I know you know about this, or can you help me with this and that the minutes don't matter. The minutes don't matter, the moments do, and so we just being able to connect for real, even after those long periods of times of not connecting.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Okay, it still happens.

Speaker 2: 10:32

I'm going to challenge what you said, because would you then call that a?

Speaker 1: 10:33

you know there's, there's circles of friends. Yeah, you have your inner friends, your close friends, your your peter, james and john friends, and then you got your disciple, but only the 12 will roll with you. And then you got the rest of the people friends. And so those people that are only coming in when they need something or when you need something like, could you even call them? What level of friendship is that? Because, to become a close friend, a day one friend, a strong friend, someone you can lean on and depend on, someone who's going to be there when you're long gone, who could speak of your character, who could be a witness to your children and your legacy.

Speaker 1: 11:11

I don't think those are the ones that are going to be calling every six months saying, hey, what's up? Because you could have struggled, you could have lost, you could have been sick, something could have happened in your life and they were not the friend to be there to hold you down in that time. They're only coming in, in and out. Is that really called a true friend or is that just like oh, I know this guy, he's a good guy, I could trust him.

Speaker 2: 11:35

I know. For me that's how I have experienced a lot of true friends do you have any inner circle friends? I do certainly I can think of guys who I talk to on a weekly basis.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So what is the difference?

Speaker 2: 11:50

uh, effort, I guess would say putting the energy into it and really, um, you know, really putting action behind, behind the relationship, and thinking about the uh getting outside of my routine, getting outside of I'm having a bad day, I'm not gonna check on so-and-so or them getting outside of themselves and saying, hey, I'm gonna see what's up with kyle, see what he's doing, and and putting the energy into it. So, yeah, it's a putting aside the hurdles, so just just go for it I like what you said and I want to repeat it.

Speaker 1: 12:26

You said legacy friendships. I'm going to put that in there Legacy friendships require effort. Yeah definitely, as we are married. I think it has taken a lot of effort to create those kind of friends.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Sure of effort to create those kind of friends. Sure, and the older we get, the more we have in our own life to handle and the harder it is to get to put energy into those relationships.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Yeah, so yeah you know, before we were married it was easy to you had your people, I had my people and then, once we got married, we really wanted to be intentional with friendships yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:01

We really wanted to find friends that would be willing to run the race with us, and that wasn't always easy to find. Early in our marriage we wanted people who were willing to go deep in prayer and worship with us and deep in the word with us. We wanted people who had same values as us. We wanted people who could hang out with us and then as we got kids, you know that evolved in that change and they're like well, we want people that we can live life with. In the midst of the children chaos, like someone who's going to understand us, because as soon as we had kids, there was a whole nother group of friends that were just like okay, we're going to. You know, our lifestyle doesn't match and so we'll see you over here, we'll see you when you get out of this phase.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Not that that was rude or intense, like it's just life happens and people's life, people's life's journey kind of changes, how they interact and how much effort they put into it. But I know for a long time we were praying hard about please help us find friends, true friends, good connections that we can live life with. And it's not to say that people weren't there, it's just there were so many people there that God really had to show us. Which ones were we going to put effort and intention into, which friendships were we going to apply and like, actively seek and actively cultivate and grow? Because if not, then you do become that six month friend and that's cool. But, like, how is that edifying you in a daily basis? How is that edifying you in a current process, in a current season? You know, I don't know for for me.

Speaker 1: 14:46

I need depth, I need some in-depth friends, and I didn't discover that until recently, when I was like, oh, it takes these things and there have been people who have been in our lives for 10 years and we just didn't see them as that until we became aware of what a true friend is and is required of us to become. So we had to be better friends. Sometimes we had to be the better friend. Sometimes it was like, oh, they've been there this whole time and we never reach out to them, why we love them, but how are we showing it? You know like, oh, we trust them, but how are we showing that trust? You know, how are we letting them know that that's where they are in our heart?

Speaker 1: 15:31

You know, the last thing I want to do is, heaven forbid. One of us passes and I see all these people come to your funeral and I never heard them pick up the phone and call and check on you or, you know, invest in your life, and then they're like, oh, he was such a good friend really, because I'm gonna be mad. I'm gonna be a mad widow really. I haven't seen you. Where have you been?

Speaker 2: 15:53

is that on them or is that on us?

Speaker 1: 15:55

exactly so that's what I'm saying yeah, it goes both ways. It goes both ways. It requires effort on both parts, but if you want to produce a legacy of friendships that's going to carry you into your whole life and into what you stand for in your life, then it's a two-way process. It's a two-part thing.

Speaker 2: 16:18

The two-way street of friendship takes. It's a defining moment of the friendship is when one person kind of gets out of that. I want to call it routine, but it can't get out of balance and keeping that two way street is huge.

Speaker 1: 16:34

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Speaker 2: 16:50

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Speaker 1: 17:10

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Speaker 2: 17:41

Can I ask a basic question? Basic question, question go because I think this is the hardest part. I think this is the hardest part for our listeners. Okay, even was the hardest part for us. Yes, how do we, how do we make friends? How do we get to zero to one? No friends to a friend. I mean, we have to have a whole, you know, 17 friends. How do we get to a friend?

Speaker 1: 18:08

that is a hard one I know my first step okay, I know you're gonna answer your own question.

Speaker 2: 18:13

I know I asked the question but, as I'm talking through it, what is it? I am, it's, it's. You always tell me, just be vulnerable yes make, put yourself out.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Yes.

Speaker 2: 18:24

And sometimes it's embarrassing. Sometimes you're going to find people who aren't going to be open to that yes. But sometimes you're going to find real deep friendships that are going to be great outcomes yes, by putting yourself out there.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Yes, I feel like in the last couple of years we have really come out of our shells, you know, and we have really determined that in order to gain those friends that we've been praying for, we have to step out to say yes to the invitations and go and not overthink it and not think about, like our kids and you know, oh, bedtime schedules, travel distance, time. Oh it's out of routine, you know. So we had to say yes, a little bit more. We've had to open our home and invite.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Yeah, you know we've. We have to be friendly, be hospitable.

Speaker 1: 19:23

We have led certain small groups in our church and we've invited people over for, like, big holiday dinners or cookouts or, you know, outside swimming and stuff like that, and I think by it, by allowing yourself, because there's there's two sides to this. Okay, yeah, the first side is you want to open yourself up enough so that people can come and you can connect with them and whoever has a bigger connection with you. I think Holy Spirit's going to keep them around. They're going to keep coming. You're going to continue to see them. They're going to continue to engage with you. Maybe you text each other a little more.

Speaker 1: 20:02

You're sending memes to each other now at at this point you know you find each other in church like it will just become a natural um attraction right With friends. But at the same time you have to guard your heart.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:14

You can't just let everybody in, you can't just let everybody into your space, you can't just let everybody into you know, cause at some point they might see you and they might want to dump, dump, dump and you get nothing out of that friendship. And so you really have to use that Holy Spirit discernment, and that's where I was going with that. You have to ask the Holy Spirit who is meant to be in my life in this season? Who am I meant to be a friend to? Who is meant to be my friend? Who should be in my inner circle? Who should I be more vulnerable with? Or who is just going to be that side hug on a Sunday? Hey, how you doing? How's it going? Okay, goodbye, god bless you that you see every so often, but they're not into your space.

Speaker 1: 21:03

You can't let everybody into your space. And so how do you determine the deeper friends? By letting holy spirit bring you guys into that space together. Naturally, I used to force it. I used to come on, let's meet, let's meet, let's meet, come on, come on, come on and then be disappointed when it doesn't come to the point when it, when it didn't work out, what what's wrong with me?

Speaker 1: 21:24

I'm a good friend, I'm a good friend and it's like that's not the way to do it. I think it requires a little bit of natural I don't know a good word for it but there has to be a natural flow and a natural attraction. And then once you have that natural attraction right and once you know that, like God has these people in my life, I know that this is a God thing. I know that this is we're lining up, we're finding common ground and everything. Their pace is either the same or a little bit off, but I see that iron is sharpening iron.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Like I see that.

Speaker 1: 22:02

I'm getting something out of this, they'm getting something out of this, they are getting something out of this. I have a desire to want to pour more into it, they have a desire to want to pour more into it, and I think, when you get to that point, then you ask God, god, what can I do? What should I do to keep this? How can I continue to pour into this so that this is something that you're getting glorified and let's go.

Speaker 2: 22:26

You know, yeah, let it all be for his glory, let it all be for his glory. So I'm thinking back while you're telling the story, yeah, of of making these connections and forcing the wrong ones too recently I had someone approach me and want to do a small group, wanted to lead a men's group with me. Yeah, and it was someone. I was like, yeah, this sounds, I mean, holy Spirit was leading me to do this kind of thing. Yeah, and then they asked the partner and I was like, yes, this could be great.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Yeah to lead the group to connect over being ready each week to have the message together and the teamwork to put that together and to show up and then, execute has helped our friendship to grow deeper and it's someone who I could see, you know, continuing even though our group season might be over, our group sessions might be over. You know, I could see doing life with this person more regularly and that's that natural. I guess it was natural. But also is getting outside of the comfort zone to do something in partnership with someone that partnering together to work together.

Speaker 2: 23:41

You know, I think of joining different ministries in the church. You know, if you go teach Sunday school or you go do the the welcome team at your church, you're going to make new friends there and you're going to grow deeper there and that's where you're going to be able to just get the basics over with, right Like get the ice broken to like, hey, maybe this person could be someone that I could have a long lasting friendship with amen, and that's very recently that this started happening in this season, where you were like, let me be open to find this new friend, you know I didn't set out to find a friend, no, but it just it happened to impact men's lives in there I brought it in there.

Speaker 1: 24:22

I think, just like marriage, how you have to include and you have to invite and be very intentional, with the Holy Spirit being at the center of that relationship.

Speaker 1: 24:30

That kind of flows with every relationship and that kind of flows also with friendships. There are people in our college days, in your bachelor and my bachelorette days, where they might not be following the Lord as closely as we are, but they are still considered friends. Some of them to me are still considered day one friends. I don't necessarily get into Bible theology discussions with them, but they see my light and they know that I'm here and I know who and I know who they are and I'm not ashamed to talk about the gospel. I'm not ashamed to talk about my faith with these people because I know that that is who I am and they accept me for who I am. They accept that that is what comes with me. You know, and I feel like sometimes, being a friend, having a lasting legacy of a friend. You have to be very clear whatever friendship you're in, that holy spirit is in the middle of it. He's orchestrating it the, the willingness.

Speaker 2: 25:37

I think the willingness to expose our weaknesses will increase the positive outcomes of your friendships. Right, you don't think so?

Speaker 1: 25:49

Hmm, I mean, I'm an open book, I don't hide anything from anyone, and I still have people who have heard everything and have decided not to be my friend.

Speaker 2: 26:01

So then you're saying so it's can't have them all right? No, just because you think it's going to be, doesn't mean it is.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Again, it goes all the way back to what I said at the very beginning Friendships we have been taught since grade school to keep because they're important and a lot of the times I feel like people will see who's there and who's not there and it will become a part of their identity. They'll start to see themselves as either I am blessed, I am important, I am significant because of the friends that I have, or it'll turn and say I am nothing, I'm a loser, I am a nobody because I don't have enough friends. And you have to be very careful with that because you're placing these relationships in an idle form.

Speaker 2: 26:53

Yeah, you're making them your identities, based on your quantity of friends.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Exactly Not just your quantity of friends, but your quality of friends.

Speaker 1: 27:01

You know, like there's clicks, right, people have clicks, and if you're not in a specific click, then you might feel like, oh, I'm not cool enough, I'm not important enough, how come they don't reach out to me? You know, you see all the pictures on social media everybody's hanging out. How come they didn't invite me? And you really start to place a lot of weight into these relationships, which is why it's so important and it's something that I learned literally last year, a couple of years ago that the weight of who I am and what I bring to the table in terms of friendships has to rely on God, has to rely on his presence, has to rely on what he tells me to be and to do as a friend.

Speaker 1: 27:45

In that role, okay, if God is telling me you're meant to be with these group of people, you're meant to go after this person, you're meant to open up your home, because I have someone who feels this way, who needs to come and see that there's community, and you're going to be the one that's going to set that up so that I can minister to that person over there. And I'm going to keep bringing them. And then I'm going to tell you hey, go talk to this person, like God is orchestrating it. God's orchestrating all of it. All of this has to go to his glory, all of it has to point back to him. If you're in a relationship with friends and you're not pointing them to God and to his light, then are we even friends?

Speaker 2: 28:30

If you're not pointing each other towards God Not necessarily like turn your Bible.

Speaker 1: 28:34

You have to read this right now, right. But like is your character, is your unconditional love towards them? Is your consideration, bro, to just like reach out and be like, hey, how are you? What's going on? Right, come over for this, grill out, you know, come to my home and if you see that it's pulling you closer, then amen, you've got a great friend to walk with. But if you're not even willing to do that, then you know what are we doing.

Speaker 2: 29:02

What are you doing?

Speaker 1: 29:03

What are we doing? We're wasting time. We're wasting everybody's time.

Speaker 2: 29:06

Keep it moving to the next friend. Try again with someone else.

Speaker 1: 29:20

You know, and when that does happen, it's so important to remember that who you are is not defined by who's in your life other than Christ being in your life, because people will come and go. Hearts are fickle, people have things that they're going through. The way people handle situations are is different on from person to person.

Speaker 2: 29:39

you know, and you can't base your joy and your peace and your sustenance on those things so we're we're doing the series on legacy yes and we started with friends yes and I thought that starting with friends was was a good starting point yeah because you know family we're getting to that yes family's there forever and you have to work with them in a different way.

Speaker 2: 30:09

You know taking care of your kids is different, it's a different calling. But friends requires a whole separate level of just commitment than than any of those other things and I've had some friendships that are just more rewarding than than family, more rewarding than, I guess not more rewarding than kids, but more rewarding than than I could expect. No, children are just such a different.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Five different love. Yeah, it's a.

Speaker 2: 30:37

It's a filet-o-love but I'm saying that the the whole point of of this series is that we got to get outside of ourselves and that we're going to build something that's that's going to be driving forward. Legacy drives forward, yes, and drives people to want to be a better person. Because I was friends with kyle, because I was friends with Selena, because I was friends with Paul or Terry or whoever, yeah, and that's what legacy does, and that's the whole. That's what we're going to do in this series. Let's get into that.

Speaker 1: 31:07

And I think a lot of that is reflected of your character. Then you know, what kind of character do you have? How are you evolving it? How are you maturing?

Speaker 1: 31:17

it how are you growing it? You know, and I think having becoming friends with different people in different seasons will help you mature that character. You know. I think understanding where your light comes from and who your true source of peace and joy is will help with those friendships. And I think the goal at the end of the day when you have friends is did you allow God to use you to make someone else's life brighter in some way?

Speaker 2: 31:49

Yep, did you put your light on something Did?

Speaker 1: 31:51

you put your light on something in some way by being a friend, your light on something? Did you put your light on something in some way?

Speaker 2: 31:58

by being a friend.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Whatever being a friend looked like to them right. Whether it was an inner circle friend where you were vulnerable and gave them space to be vulnerable and grow. Whether it was an outer kind of friend where, no matter what, you showed kindness and you you didn't judge or condemn, you know. Or whether it was a friend who was in a season, who was so pivotal in that season and they'll remember it for the rest of their life.

Speaker 1: 32:20

You know, standing on God and standing on how he teaches you to be a good person and how to develop a good character and how to pour and love into other people. I think that is what helps us build that lasting legacy of a friendship that not only your kids can see but everyone around you can see. Like that is a good guy, a man of integrity, a woman of defiance, like because of how you treated them and what kind of love you shown them and that's all just God flowing through you.

Speaker 2: 32:51

It all comes down to the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 32:52

Absolutely Making it happen.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Why don't we go ahead and?

Speaker 1: 32:54

pray, okay, god flowing through you, it all comes down to the Holy Spirit Absolutely Making it happen. Amen. Why don't we go ahead and pray? Okay, and for those of you guys who are struggling with friends, we hope that this episode helped and we hope that it challenges you and encourages you to kind of step out of your comfort zone and also to bring God back to the center.

Speaker 2: 33:16

You know Amen, amen, yeah zone, and also to, like, bring god back to the center. You know, amen, amen, yeah. Lord, we're grateful for this opportunity to just share and to to study your word and to bring a good message. We pray that this lands on good ears and good soil and that people are encouraged and they are pray that they're patient to understand that friendships take time, take energy, take work, and that the fruit of those friendships, though, is what it's worth it. The fruit of it is worth it. I thank you, lord, for this time, for this space, and we just give you the glory for all of it, in Jesus's name, amen.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Amen, guys, listeners, thank you so much for watching and listening. If you are with us on youtube, be sure to like, share, subscribe. If you're listening to us on spotify, apple, iheart radio, any of the other platforms, please be sure to leave us a good review so that other couples like you can learn how to love by faith as well.

Speaker 2: 34:12

Love by faith y'all love by faith y'all.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Next week, we're going to talk more about how to leave a legacy in a different area of your life, and we will see you then we'll be here.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Bye, see ya, that's one of those where I don't have to run out, though. Yeah, man, I'm just gonna chill. Please do stay till you kick me out all right, can I go back to bed?

Speaker 1: 34:41

if you chill, can I sleep again? You could I just ma'am?

Speaker 1: 34:44

I just, I don't know if it's the sun, I don't know if it's it is it's the water from swimming it is it's the constant, you know, as soon as I wake up, to the minute I go to bed just putting contacts in, you know, not feeling like I can't wear glasses in the sun. Okay, I have a weird confession. I have a weird confession. I don't think I ever told you this, I believe. I don't know if this is true or not. I believe that if I wear glasses in the sun, that the sun is going to go into the glass and it's going to burn holes in my eyes, I always get scared, you know, like a magnifier, and I always get scared that if I wear glasses in the sun that the sun is going to ultra fixate on my eyeballs and I'm going to get burned.

Speaker 2: 35:37

Wow, I think the only way that is accurate is if you're looking directly at the sun. Okay, and so the sun is directly into the lens.

Speaker 1: 35:47

It feels like that though.

Speaker 2: 35:48

But if you're looking this way, then the sun is just down on you, so it's going to hold on your cheeks.

Speaker 1: 35:55

So that's where that comes from.

Speaker 2: 35:57

So if you got holes in your cheeks, that's where it is, that's why my cheeks are so puffy. Get me out of here. Yeah, I'm going to go go see this son that you talk about.

Speaker 1: 36:06

I'm going to go see my pillow.

Speaker 2: 36:07

Get out of the studio.

Speaker 1: 36:10

Good night everyone. 7 am.