Becoming best friends with God

By Grace George

God wants to be your best friend. Your relationship to God has many different aspects: God is your creator and maker, Lord and Master, Judge, Redeemer, Father, Saviour and much more! But the most shocking truth is this: Almighty God yearns to be your friend!

In Eden we see God's ideal relationship with us: Adam and Eve enjoyed an intimate friendship with God. There were no rituals, ceremonies, or religion - just a simple loving relationship between God and the people He created. Unhindered by guilt or fear. Adam and Eve delighted in God, and He delighted in them.

We were made to live in God's continual presence, but after the Fall, that ideal relationship was lost. Only a few people in Old Testament times had the privilege of friendship with God. Abraham and Moses were called "friends of God", David was called "a man after God's own heart."

Unlike the Old Testament priests who had to spend hours preparing to meet Him, we can now approach God any time. The Bible says, "Now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God - all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God."

Friendship with God is possible only because of the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. "All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends." The old hymn says, "What a friend we have in Jesus," but actually God invites us to enjoy friendship and fellowship with all three persons of the Trinity: our heavenly Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." The word for 'friend' in this verse does not mean a casual acquaintance but a close, trusted relationship.

Knowing and loving God is our greatest privilege, and being known and loved is God's greatest pleasure.

It is difficult to imagine how an intimate friendship is possible between an omnipotent, invisible, perfect God and a finite, sinful human being. It is easier to understand a master-servant relationship or a creator-creation relationship or even father-child. But what does it mean when God wants you as a friend?
 

You will never grow a close relationship with God by just attending church once a week or even having a daily quiet time. Friendship with God is built by sharing all your life experiences with Him.!
 

From the lives of God's friends in the Bible we learn two essential factors of keeping friendship with Him. And that will work out only when you choose to be honest with God, obey God in faith, value what God values and desire friendship with God more than anything else.

Through constant conversation

You will never grow a close relationship with God by just attending church once a week or even having a daily quiet time. Friendship with God is built by sharing all your life experiences with Him.

Of course, it is important to establish the habit of a daily devotional time with God, but He wants more than an appointment in your schedule. He wants you to include Him in your daily activities, every conversation, every problem and even every thought. You can carry on a continuous open-ended conversation with Him throughout your day, talking with Him about whatever you are doing or thinking at that moment. "Praying without ceasing" means conversing with God while shopping, driving, working, or performing any other routine tasks.

A common misconception is that "spending time with God" means being alone with Him. Of course, as Jesus modelled, you need time alone with God, but that is only a fraction of your waking hours. Everything you do can be "spending time with God" if He is invited to be a part of it and you stay aware of His presence.

The classic book on learning how to develop a constant conversation with God is practising the presence of God. The key to friendship with God is not changing what you do, but changing your attitude towards what you do. What you normally do for yourself you begin doing for God, whether it is eating, bathing, working, relaxing or taking out trash.

Today we often feel we must "get away" from our daily routine in order to worship God, but that is only because we haven't learned to practise His presence all the time.

The Bible tells us "pray all the time". How is it possible to do this? One way is to use "breath prayers" throughout the day as many Christians have done for centuries. You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath: "You are with me," "I receive Your grace," "I want to know you," etc. Just be sure that your motive is to honour God not to control Him. Practising the presence of God is a skill, a habit you can develop. Just as musicians practise scales every day in order to play beautiful music with ease, you must force yourself to think about God at different times in your day.

Through continual meditation

A second way to establish a friendship with God is by thinking about His Word throughout your day. This is called "meditation," and the Bible repeatedly urges us to meditate on who God is, what He has done, and what He has said. You can't love God unless you know Him, and you can't know God without knowing His Word.

While you cannot spend all time studying the Bible, you can think about is throughout the day, recalling verses you have read or memorized and mulling them over in your mind. Meditation is often misunderstood as some difficult mysterious, ritual practised by isolated monks and mystics. But meditation is simply focused thinking - a skill anyone can learn and use anywhere.

When you think about a problem over and over in your mind, it is called 'worry'. When you think about God's Word over and over in your mind that's meditation. If you know how to worry you already know how to meditate! The more you meditate, on God's Word, the less you will have to worry about. Friends share secrets, and God will share His secrets with you if you develop your habit of thinking about His Word throughout the day. God told Abraham his secrets and did the same to Daniel, Paul and other friends.

When you read your Bible, hear a sermon or listen to tape, don't just forget and walk away. Develop the practice of reviewing the truth in your mind, thinking about it over and over. The more time you spend reviewing what God has said, the more you will understand the 'secrets' of this life that most people miss.

The Bible says, "Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence him, with them alone he shares the secrets of his promises."

Start today by practising constant conversation with God and continual meditation on His Word. Prayer lets you speak to God; meditation lets God speak to you.

Both are essential to becoming a 'friend of God.' God bless you