Sometimes following Jesus changes your habits. Sometimes it changes your priorities. And sometimes, without you planning it, it starts changing your relationships too.
I’ve noticed that in my own life. The closer I’ve gotten to God, the more some things that used to feel normal just don’t feel the same anymore. That doesn’t mean I stopped caring about people. It doesn’t mean I suddenly became better than anybody else. And it definitely doesn’t mean I have everything figured out.
It just means God has been changing me. And when God changes you, sometimes the relationships around you change too.
I Still Like People
I don’t want this to sound like I decided the Christian life means shutting everybody out. That’s not me. I still like seeing friends. I still enjoy sitting around talking, laughing, having dinner, catching up, and spending time with people I care about.
But I have changed. There was a time when I felt like I always needed to be doing something — going somewhere, seeing somebody, finding something entertaining. Being alone bothered me. Now it doesn’t.
These days, some of my favorite time is quiet time. I read my devotional. I pray. I work on Faith for Real Life. I read Scripture. Sometimes I just sit and think. The television barely comes on anymore unless Annita and I are watching a movie together on the weekend.
Some people might say that’s just getting older. Maybe part of it is. But I know there’s more to it than that. I don’t just want less noise. I want more of God. And that changes things.
The Real Reason
I want to be honest about something, because I think it matters more than anything else in this post.
I’ve had close friends — men who’ve felt more like brothers than friends — who ended up on the back burner. Not for months. For years, if I’m being honest with myself. And I don’t like the way that sounds, even as I type it, because none of them did anything wrong. Not one. This isn’t their story. It’s mine.
For a long time, I knew I needed to change. I just wasn’t strong enough to actually do it. Then my heart started acting up. I’ve written before about the health problems that started pulling a lot of this into focus for me — heart procedures followed, and so did significant weight loss and lifestyle changes I never expected to make.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I found myself spending what little free time I had with family instead of friends. Not because I stopped loving my friends. Because I finally started understanding how limited my time actually is — time with my wife, my kids, my grandchildren, people I already feel like I don’t get nearly enough hours with. When you’ve had enough reminders that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, time starts looking different.
Getting Stronger Came First
I’ll be honest about something else too. There are old routines and old habits I don’t want back — habits that took time away from my family, habits that weren’t healthy for me. And sometimes being around familiar situations can make familiar habits easier to fall back into. That’s on me. Not my friends. Nobody made my decisions for me then, and nobody is responsible for the decisions I make now.
So this isn’t really a friendship problem. It’s a me problem. I needed to get stronger — physically, in my marriage, with my kids, and most of all in my faith. Nobody and nothing is taking that faith away from me. I’ve believed in God my whole life. What I need now is to actually live like it. Repent where I need to repent. Follow closer. Let my life start looking more like Christ’s — for my own sake, for my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and for whatever years God gives me from here.
I miss my friends. That’s real too. This isn’t some clean trade-off where I changed my priorities and suddenly stopped caring about the people who have meant something to me. I haven’t. But I know what I needed to strengthen first.
Some Conversations Don’t Feel the Same Anymore
When your priorities start changing, certain conversations start feeling different too. Things you used to laugh at might not be as funny anymore. Gossip starts bothering you more. Constant negativity wears you out faster. Arguments that once would have pulled you in don’t seem worth your peace anymore.
You start realizing how much time can disappear talking about people, complaining about people, or getting worked up over things that won’t matter a week from now. I’ve had to look at myself in that too, because it’s easy to point at everybody else’s conversations and forget how many of them I participated in.
God didn’t show me those things so I could judge other people. He showed me because He was working on me. That’s an important difference. Jesus warned us about being more concerned with the speck in somebody else’s eye than the plank in our own (Matthew 7:3-5, NLT). I have enough planks of my own to keep me busy.
Not Every Friendship Has to End
I think Christians sometimes make this harder than it needs to be. We start following Jesus more seriously and think every relationship from our old life has to disappear. I don’t believe that.
Jesus spent time with people who were nothing like Him. He didn’t isolate Himself from broken people. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, and the religious crowd around Him couldn’t understand why (Luke 15:1-2, NLT). He loved them. He talked with them. He went where they were. But He never let the people around Him determine who He was. That’s the difference.
You can love someone without following them everywhere. You can be friends with somebody without agreeing with everything they do. You can care deeply about someone and still have boundaries. And sometimes a friendship doesn’t have to end — it just changes. Maybe you don’t spend as much time together. Maybe you stop participating in certain things. Maybe the conversations become different. Maybe you’re still there when they need you, but you’re no longer chasing the same things you once chased together.
That isn’t always rejection. Sometimes it’s growth.
Some People Won’t Understand the New You
This might be one of the harder parts. When you change, people notice, and not everybody is going to understand it. Some people may think you’ve become boring. Others assume you’ve gotten overly religious. A few will joke about your faith or wonder out loud why you don’t want to do certain things anymore. And some will take your changes personally, even when none of this has anything to do with them.
I think that can tempt us in two directions. One is to compromise so everybody stays comfortable with us. The other is to become proud and start thinking we’re somehow better than the people who haven’t changed in the same way. Both are dangerous.
Following Jesus doesn’t make me better than my friends. It reminds me how much grace I need. Every day.
The Right Friends Matter
The Bible talks a lot about the influence people have on each other. Proverbs says, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend” (Proverbs 27:17, NLT).
I understand that verse differently now than I did years ago. A good friend doesn’t just make you laugh. A good friend doesn’t just agree with you. A good friend helps you become better. They tell you the truth. They pray for you. They encourage your faith. They challenge you when you’re wrong. They celebrate what God is doing in your life instead of making fun of it. And hopefully you do the same for them.
I’ve been blessed with people in my life who have done that for me — sometimes through encouragement, sometimes through difficult conversations, sometimes simply by the way they live. God uses people. I’ve seen that over and over again.
Sometimes God Creates Distance
There are also times when relationships naturally become more distant. Nobody has to have a big argument. Nobody has to become the villain. Life changes. Priorities change. People change. And sometimes distance comes while God is doing something different in your life.
That doesn’t mean you stop loving someone. It doesn’t mean you forget what they meant to you. It just means you stop forcing a relationship to remain exactly what it used to be.
I think I’ve learned that more as I’ve gotten older. Not every relationship stays in exactly the same season forever. Some people walk beside you for decades. Some for a few years. Some for one season. And some people God uses for one moment that ends up changing your life. I’ve written about that before — sometimes we don’t even recognize what God was doing through people until years later.
Don’t Become So “Spiritual” That Nobody Can Stand You
This is probably worth saying. Getting closer to God should make us more loving, not more arrogant. More patient, not more judgmental. More gracious, not more self-righteous. If my faith makes me treat everybody around me like I’m spiritually superior, something has gone wrong.
People should see Christ changing the way I live. They shouldn’t have to listen to me constantly announce how much better I’m living. There’s a difference. Jesus said the world would know we’re His followers by our love for one another(John 13:35, NLT) — not by how loudly we criticize everybody else.
That challenges me. Because it’s possible to have the right beliefs and still have the wrong attitude. I don’t want that.
Maybe You’re the Friend God Is Using
There’s another side to all of this. While God may be changing some of your friendships, He may also be using you inside those friendships. Maybe somebody needs to see what peace looks like. Maybe they need somebody who will listen without joining the gossip. Maybe they need a friend who will pray for them. Maybe years from now they’ll remember something you said that you don’t even remember saying.
I know firsthand how powerful that can be. God has used people in my life who had no idea how much influence they had. And maybe He’s doing the same thing through us. That means I don’t want to run away from everybody who isn’t where I am spiritually. I want to stay close enough to love people — but close enough to Jesus that I don’t lose myself trying to fit in.
What Comes Next
I also know getting stronger in my health, my family, and my faith can’t mean staying inward-focused forever. Somewhere in this next season, I need to find a way to serve my church again. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. I don’t know where I fit. And with everything else on my plate, I don’t know how it all comes together. But it’s been sitting heavy on my mind, and I don’t think that’s an accident.
Maybe part of God changing what I want is preparing me to start giving some of it away. Not just writing about faith. Not just studying faith. Not just talking about faith. Living it, where somebody else might need me.
Following Jesus Changes Things
The more seriously I take my relationship with Christ, the more I realize following Him isn’t just something I add to my life. He changes the life. He changes what I want, how I spend my time, what gives me peace, what bothers me, what I value. And sometimes He changes who I spend my time with.
Not because I suddenly became better than anybody. Because I am not the same person I used to be.
I’m still learning. Still failing. Still asking God to work on parts of me I’d rather pretend don’t need work. But I know this much: I don’t want to hold onto any relationship, habit, comfort, or version of myself so tightly that I resist what God is trying to do in me.
I want to love people well. I want to be a good friend. I want to stay humble. And I want the people around me to see something different in my life — not because I told them I changed, but because Jesus actually changed me.
That’s faith for real life.
It’s me. It’s Brian. My faith and my struggles. His faith and his struggles. Different battles. Same mission.
Real faith. Real struggles. No pretending.
