Friend of God

Who am I that You are mindful of me,
That You hear me when I call?
Is it true that You are thinking of me,
How You love me... it's amazing!

I am a friend of God! He calls me friend!

Back several years ago when my wife and I were in the worship choir at church, this song was the new thing, and we sang it quite frequently. It's a joyful, upbeat song; it's a fun one to sing. We sang it this past weekend at a marriage conference I went to with my wife, and it brought back some fun memories of those days. I remember we used to joke that the actual lyric is "...He calls me Fred" ...but we never sang it that way in church (not intentionally, at least!)

I also remember once our worship leader saying that she had actually received flak for the lyric. "Friend," the objection goes, is apparently too familiar of a term to use for God. When I heard her say that I immediately recognized that as a ridiculous objection which stems from a lack of actual knowledge of what the Bible says. What? That was what you were thinking? Let me show you from the Bible that God actually does call human beings His friend. I can think of an example from each testament right off the top of my head.

Old Testament: Abraham

    But you, Israel, my servant,
        Jacob, whom I have chosen,
        the offspring of Abraham, my friend... -Isaiah 41:8 ESV

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 2 Chronicles 20:7 ESV

Obviously it was common knowledge back then that God said Abraham was His friend. It should be common knowledge to Christians now, because there is also a New Testament verse that says so (probably the inspiration, along with Psalm 8:4, for the song):

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. -James 2:22-23 ESV

Bonus Old Testament friend of God's: Moses. "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent." -Exodus 33:11 ESV

But, weren't Abraham and Moses special cases? Surely not just ANYBODY can be a "friend of God," right? Just those special people. Is that what you think? Well, let me remind you of:

New Testament: Disciples

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." -John 15:12-15 ESV

In His farewell speech to His disciples, Jesus very specifically told them that they were His friends. Not His "servants," He told them, but His "friends." The disciples were far from special; they were a bunch of miscellaneous fishermen and other laypeople that Jesus had gathered around Him. And it's pretty likely that you believe, as I do, that Jesus' discourse here was intended not only for those present, but for all of us disciples of Christ which were to come (apparently the Apostle John felt the same way, or else he probably wouldn't have recorded it in such length). If you read through the rest of the discourse, you will find things that Christians have applied to themselves throughout the centuries. The gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise of Heaven. Being branches of the True Vine. Hatred of the World for Christians. All of these things we have applied to ourselves through the years; why not the simple friendship of God?

Heaven

Last night I had a dream. In my dream, I was hanging out with an old friend from high school, and he had some photos of friends of ours from back in the day. The pictures were in black and white, but as I looked at each one, it turned into a color picture before my eyes. When I looked away, it would turn back to a black and white picture. I woke up feeling sort of wistful, almost nostalgic. I miss those kids I grew up with.

Of course, they're not kids any more. They're all either pushing 40 like I am, or past it. I know why I had that dream: it's all the fault of Facebook. On Facebook I've connected back up with people I knew during many phases of my life... in high school, in college, and several people from seasons after that (and even one guy from grade school!) I've gotten to see current pictures of them and their spouses and children. It's amazing to see the things we still have in common, and even stranger to realize that in many cases, we have more in common now than we did then!

It's weird sometimes, too, when those worlds collide... when someone I know from high school has a discussion with someone I just met last year, or when someone I met at a previous job turns out to know someone I met at my current job (this happened recently). The illusion that all of these people are somehow together in the same place is a strange one. The fact is that these people are scattered all over the country, and in a few cases, the world. I'm in Oklahoma now; many of my friends from high school are still in Louisiana, but some are in Arkansas, Virginia, Texas, and other places. My high school youth pastor is now a missionary to Africa. My friends from college are even more scattered, since their places of origin were more varied to start with. Last year we switched from our long-time church; even our friends from that period are still at that church or scattered at various churches around town. But by some miraculous circumstance, I can find all of those people in one "place" on the Internet. There's never been a time in history where people all across the face of the globe could feel connected to each other like they can with a social networking site like Facebook.

I have a theory that human beings have something inside them that longs for Heaven. When we feel nostalgic for something in the past, we're longing for Heaven (because when we think back truthfully to that time, it's never as happy of a time as it seems like in our nostalgia). And Heaven is a place where hopefully all my friends and I will be one day! Facebook is far from being Heaven, of course... there are bugs and privacy concerns, and the purpose of Facebook is basically to gather enough information about you to target advertising your way. But being with your spiritual family is part of what will be wonderful about Heaven. Being in close fellowship with the other saints of God... and saints who are once and for all freed from the temptation to sin! ...that will be amazing. I can't wait!

God's Answer for Broken Relationships

Sunday during our church service we had a brief time of praying for one another... sometimes Pastor has people turn to each other in small groups and pray for each other's needs. This particular time, in the middle of a quick, off-the-cuff list of things we could pray for, he said something about "broken relationships." As I was praying up in the choir loft, I began to thank God that He provided for Salvation by His blood, and healing by His broken body, and on and on... thanking God for everything I could think of that was provided by Jesus' death and resurrection. Then suddenly something occurred to me.

When Jesus was on the cross, all of His closest friends ran away. Only one of them even came back to be with Him as He died. Jesus even gave His own mother away. When He needed them most, almost all the people in Jesus' inner circle had abandoned Him. What I realized was that as Jesus was bearing our sin on Himself, He was also suffering the pain of broken relationships. God's healing and salvation is there for those things too! I guess that just goes to show that there are always more layers to discover as we meditate on what the Word says happened at Calvary!