Have you ever had a friend who offers piercingly honest advice spoken from a heart of love? It’s a rare gift: part surgeon’s knife, part healing touch.

This is how Jesus conversed with his disciples. It’s how he continues to converse with us when we quiet our hearts to listen.

A potent mixture of truth and love is also found in the letters of great spiritual writers down through the ages, from the Apostle Paul to 17^th-century archbishop François Fénelon.

“Fénelon is too sour and dire for me,” one theologian told Winn Collier, who had just published a book reinterpreting letters by the 17^th-century archbishop.

Collier, who now directs the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination, doesn’t share that assessment. As a fledgling pastor, he discovered Fénelon’s letters and found them, yes, penetrating and direct, but also winsome and full of practical spiritual wisdom. (Hear about it on this week’s episode of the Renovaré Podcast.)

But I can see how the words of Fénelon, or Jesus for that matter, might sound ​“sour and dire.” To prevent this, we need to read through the lens of friendship. Because while the words may still sting, ​“wounds from a friend can be trusted” (Proverbs 27:6).

After giving tough advice to a friend in one letter, Fénelon assured him, ​“The freedom I covet for you to enjoy is far more valuable than all you are fearful of losing.”

So this year may you find wise old friends, like Fénelon, and flesh-and-blood friends who care enough to have refreshingly candid conversations. And may the Lord help you, and help me, to become that kind of friend.