friend of God

Job 29:4 NIV

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house,

James 2:23 NLT
And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith." He was even called the friend of God.

I'd like to have been a proverbial fly on the wall when God spent time with Adam in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the picture.  The Bible portrays a wonderful picture of friendship between them.  The verses I quoted above talk about Job and Abraham also having a friendship with God.

We can and must have a friend in God.  He desires to spend time with us, encourage us, speak into our lives, help us when we are in need and even celebrate with us when things are good.  That is what a friend does.

God is big and good.  He is holy and righteous.  He is worthy of our praise, and as other Scripture reminds us, we should fall on our faces in worship of Him.  Often we fall before God because of our sin and His holiness.  Having to spend time on earth and in difficult, less than perfect situations seems to put a huge gulf between us and God making our worshipping seem to be still focused on God but who might be a distance away.

Yet friendships are close.  They are stronger when people spend time together, learn from each other and share life.  God desires the same from us.

I imagine this kind of like that friend we enjoy being with.  Before you get together, you are excited and are ready for a reunion of sorts.  When you have to leave, you are disappointed.  Those are special friends. Shouldn't our relationship with God be like that?

Please hear me well.  I am not belittling God or making Him more human that we should.  He is still all God, perfect and holy with a desire for our lives to be in line with His character.  Yet I believe we often miss the sweet relationship that God wants to have with us.  The relationship that friends would make sure happens.  We need God.  We need to hear His voice and feel His presence.  We need His strength and His wisdom.  We need to be close to Him.

There is another plus to being in a close friendship with God.  It is the benefits of knowing someone who has influence or who wants to share blessings.  God wants to share with us.  Are we allowing Him to share?  Are we staying far from God because of view of God isn't quite right?

It is time that you I experience what it is to be a "friend of God".

Proverbs 17:17 NASB
A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.

John 15:13 NASB
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.