Sunday, April 26

Jesus said, “I have called you friends.”
—John 15:15

In Jesus, God calls us friends. It is an astounding possibility—to be a friend of God.

Friendship, by its very nature, is freely chosen. Friends choose one another, and do not have legal contracts that bind the relationship. Friends share common interests, without insisting that both parties be exactly the same.

And friends know that rich dimension of love that flourishes in freedom, without coercion. Friends desire to honor one another, enjoy one another, delight in one another’s joys, share each other’s sorrows. Friends show up for one another through thick and thin.

Do you imagine God as Friend? Can you admit that possibility into the various images of God that rumble around in your soul? Or do other images take up too much room—perhaps troubling images of God as judge or stern taskmaster, mean-minded accountant or wrathful old man?

Befriending God is a bit like befriending a lion, as those familiar with C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia will know. God is not docile, nor is God tameable. God is not a pet, as much as we would like to think that.

Befriending God involves allowing God to be who God is: radically free, infinitely creative, unfathomably loving, unimaginably just.

Act as if this is true: God befriends you, and you are called to befriend God. What would your life look like if you began to act in God’s best interests instead of your own? How would your daily round change if every decision were made with explicit awareness that the decision needed to honor this friendship?

Holy and Gracious Friend, grant me the grace to befriend you all the days of my life. Amen.