I Call You Friend

Throughout our life we encounter many images of God—most often father, creator, judge, and guide. However, Wisdom leads us to a more intimate image of God: “Passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets” (Wisdom 7: 27).

Given God’s power and magnificence and our lowliness, friendship with God may not seem to be within the realm of possibility. However, Scripture indicates otherwise. For example, the creation story suggests that in the early days of human life, God was in the practice of walking with Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:8). Abraham and Moses certainly can be said to have a friendship with God, with whom they conversed frequently; we are told that they felt free to argue with, ask favors of, offer gifts to, and negotiate with God. Jesus, the incarnation of God, said to his disciples, “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I have called you friends, because I told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

How does Wisdom produce friends of God? Paradoxically, I believe it is through a combination of humility and self-esteem. Friendship requires the intimacy of self-disclosure, which means we must be humble enough to share our failings, struggles, desires, and dreams and in turn listen to what our friend shares with us. Friendship also entails delighting in the other. It is easy to delight in God, but do we have the confidence that God also delights in us—our humor, our generosity, our creativity, our uniqueness?

With Pentecost on the horizon, perhaps we can ask the Spirit of Wisdom to make us friends of God. Then we can rejoice in saying with the psalmist, “I walk with you, God, in the light of your life” (Ps 56: 14).