Made for People Quotes

“I can’t recall most dinners, I forget too many books, and I don’t remember 90 percent of the sermons I’ve heard; and yet all have sustained my body and soul in ways I cannot even begin to fathom. I might not be able to recall the vast majority of my conversations with friends, but I know they have sustained my soul through the years.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“The internet and smartphones are fantastic for connections, communication, and knowledge. But connections are not friends, communication is not intimacy, and knowledge is not wisdom.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“If we are made for friendship, then we will be missing something fundamental in our marriages and parenting if we try to do those without friends.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“people have to be friends with the sinner version of you because that’s the real version of you.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“Our struggling stewardship of time shows us two important things. First, we have much more time than we think. But second, we are not good at using that time well because we are often mentally compromised at the moment of choice. Enter the saving power of a schedule.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“These words are among the most amazing recorded in Scripture. Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, invites us into the intimacy of the circle of friendship that exists between him and the Father.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“We are still young, but we have done something remarkable already. We have stayed together. I think where we find ourselves is extremely significant. Significant because the next seven years, I think, are going to be final in a way that the last seven have not. In the next seven years every one of us will be in our thirties, some nearing forty. We are already starting marriages, families, careers, and settling into cities. In the next seven years those things are going to become more and more entrenched. The concrete we’re pouring into the habits of our lives is going to dry, and we are going to become the kind of people that we’re going to be for a long, long time. Let me put it another way. The college years and the early twenties lend themselves to a kind of emotional radicalness where you actually can and do completely shift your habits, and we become new people. That window, however, is likely closing. Thus, I think now is the time to consider seriously what kinds of people we are becoming. We have a good start, but I think the next seven years will be far more determinative of what kinds of friends we will be in the long run. The next seven years will show: Will we have the kind of friendships that sustain us through rocky years in marriage? Maybe more important, will we have the kind of friendships that sustain us through the difficulties of not being married yet? Will we have the kind of friends who live as examples to one another’s kids? Will we be the kind of friends who support one another financially if a job or business falls through or support one another emotionally if we hit dead ends in our careers? Will we be the kind of friends who won’t ignore and won’t let one another get into bad emotional, physical, sexual, or financial habits? I think the summary of what I’m longing for, the reasons why I decided to write all this down, is I see the beginnings of a covenant between us. And I see the possibility of covenant relationships forming in the long run. And I want to name the goodness, to give words to what the Lord is doing among us. I want to call one another not simply by what we are but by what we are hoping to become. I think that might be “covenant friends.” I leave whatever form it takes to you, but what I hope is that we begin to think and talk of one another in these terms, in terms of covenant relationships, where we acknowledge that the Lord is binding us together in ways that we don’t have the option to separate. In conclusion, I think our next seven years may be our most important, and I want us to consider pushing into those years consciously, as covenant friends. It might go a long way toward what I hope for as our end. This is what I imagine: that in the long run we will look at one another and say, “I have a lot of friends, but none like you.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“Grace, as it turns out, is a much sturdier foundation for relationship than perfection. Grace means that the failures of friends can be the cause of our coming together, not the cause of our falling apart.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“Loneliness comes from losing a loved one. Loneliness comes from moving away. It comes from changing churches or seeing a small group dissolve. Loneliness comes from being excluded or breaking up. It comes from divorce or being hurt by someone. But often, strangely, it also comes when you’re surrounded by everyone but don’t feel known by anyone.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“We’re not a house that needs to be torn down, but we are a house that needs serious, serious renovation. We need the renovation of words—the encouragement and rebuke of friends.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“We need habits and rhythms to keep us honest. By scheduling things (like time with friends), we introduce accountability and honesty into an important part of our lives: the currency of our purpose. Time.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“The truth of grace is that our sins—even our nastiest ones—are not the things that prevent us from being loved. Those very flaws are what make us human, create our need for others, and make our reception of grace possible. And in confessing them we become closer to one another and God than ever before. Honesty about our sins becomes the path, not the barrier, to relationship.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship