Who has permission to “speak into your life”? Who do you trust to tell you the things you’d rather not hear? You may think it’s your spouse, but that’s actually pretty unlikely – we trust our spouse to be a supportive encourager and when they try to speak truth, we are more apt to be wounded than inspired. And you may think it’s your pastor of spiritual guru, but that’s pretty unlikely too. It’s an unfortunate reality that when we hear words of admonition, we’re generally like a Teflon pan and let the words slide off of us because surely they apply to someone else. No, when painful truths need to be spoken, the ones you’re most likely to hear are those you call your friends. If you would move from good to better to best, it will largely be because you’ve developed friendships and have allowed them to be honest.