Friend of God – Inspect the Evidence

I wasn’t always friends with my sister. When I was four-and-a-half years old, this amazing little human came into my life. I remember stopping my cousin from touching her, jealously making a point that she was mine. My baby sister. My responsibility. My new best friend. In the years that followed she proved to be the former two and not the latter. She was my baby sister and my responsibility but she was not my best friend. I thought she was the sister from hell. I kid you not, she made my life more than difficult. She would make up stories to get me in trouble and laugh at me when I was scolded or spanked because of her lies. She followed me everywhere, never giving me much-needed moments to myself. When I turned thirteen and joined the youth group at our church, she invaded even that sacred space. All my friends thought she was cute and always wanted her around. I hated it! I desperately wanted something for myself, something that was just mine, unpolluted by her cute yet devious little self. As she became a teenager herself, I learned to co-exist with her. This meant cleaning her messes in the room we shared and even learning to be curious about what interested her, which was the Twilight Saga back then. She barely carried her weight when it came to chores and she almost always coasted by scot-free, invisible to our mothers challenging high standards.

I’m not sure when she crossed over from little sister to best friend. I can’t tell you if it was when she comforted me as I cried because my Bolognese dog Chester, had been stolen, or when I found out she knew Ceaser was planning to propose but kept his secret. Maybe it was when I asked her to be my wedding bridesmaid, or when she would come to my new home every Saturday to help me clean and cook so that we could then relax and watch the Bachelor before Ceaser got home from work. Perhaps it was when she helped me and Ceaser set up our biggest dream yet, our new business or when she placed her hand on mine the morning after we lost our first baby. Maybe it was none of those times or all of those times, and more, combined. Maybe she always was, even before we were ever born. I couldn’t say. I can say that today she is my truest friend. She is my day one and my ride-or-die. She sees me. She loves me. She makes room for me.

Being away from her for the past 7 years as she has chased her purpose oceans away has been difficult, to say the least. Yet even in that, our friendship has evolved, blossomed and been fortified. We have become and continue to become what we need for every season we live through. She has taught me how to appreciate growing into myself and has allowed me the space to make mistakes along the way. Our friendship story has evidence. It has grit, hurt, forgiveness, sacrifice, laughter, tears, and everything else. Real life, physical evidence. Evidence that God is kind and good and all-knowing.

“You show that you are my intimate friends when you obey all that I command you. I have never called you ‘servants,’ because a master doesn’t confide in his servants, and servants don’t always understand what the master is doing. But I call you my most intimate and cherished friends, for I reveal to you everything that I’ve heard from my Father.” ~ John 15:14-15 (TPT)

You have become spiritual adulterers who are having an affair, an unholy relationship with the world. Don’t you know that flirting with the world’s values places you at odds with God? Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy! ~ James 4:4 (TPT)

I often think about the different friendships I am blessed to have, scanning through my memories in search of that all-important evidence and being reassured of the solidity of the friendship once I find it. For me, that’s what life is all about, with true and tested friendships it is worth living. I also recognise that no matter how many good friends I have, if my friendship with God isn’t where it should be, then I can be nothing and do nothing. The fact that the God of the universe knows me yet chooses to initiate and pursue a friendship with me is beyond my comprehension, yet it is the treasure of my heart. One that no matter how much I sometimes underestimate, I cannot live without, nor would I want to. There are patterns I see as evidence in my life when I am deliberate about investing in my friendship with God. You see, He wants to be our friend, and He is. Ever invested and eager to relate with us at that level which produces fruit on our branches when we take Him up on His offer.

I have been thinking a lot about this fruit, inspecting my life for evidence of it as I have honestly assessed how I am doing in maintaining my friendship with my Heavenly Father, especially as my daughter approaches her five-year milestone. The following areas have been highlighted to me, and I thought I would share them so that you too can collect and inspect your evidence.

Aligned prayers

One of the key indicators that show up in our lives when we are invested in our friendship with the Lord is that we begin to ask what matters to Him. It stops being just about what we need for our little bubble. Yes, those needs are still very real and very valid, however, because of developed trust over time, we know that even if we don’t ask, God will meet our needs. Our conversations evolve into being about what He wants to see happen in the lives of those around us, what He wants to see happen in our business or at our workplaces and what He wants to accomplish in our hearts. The fruit of this is being heard by God, answered by God and trusted by God.

Desire and power to bless others

Once we are living the reality of “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” in our friendship with God our desires completely shift. It is not so much that we stop wanting what we always wanted, it’s that the friendship impacts us in such a way that we grow, so our desires grow too. Now we have additional desires, ones that involve others. One time I remember asking God for money so that I could bless a friend. I knew how happy they would be, but at the time I didn’t have the funds to make it happen. I have never prayed so hard about needing money as I did that week. God miraculously provided more than I asked for and needed to surprise my friend and I know God was smiling bigger than my friend was. When God wants something to happen, He will place it in the hearts of His friends, trusting that they will get it done because they love Him.

Joint decisions

One thing I love about being married is that I don’t have to make all the decisions by myself. Sometimes I get decision fatigue and I just don’t want to think about what to do concerning the next pending decision that needs to be made. If Ceaser is busy and it’s a decision that I know he won’t care about, I ask my friends. I go to my sister about what I should wear and my friend Chilombo when I need to send out important communication. True friendship breeds joint decisions. Even without thinking I find myself wondering what Ceaser, my sister or my friend would think and so I quickly ask them. When I am as connected with God my Father and my Friend as I should be, I see evidence of this with Him too. “Holy Spirit what should I cook for dinner?” “Lord, what do I say to this child?” From the smallest things to the biggest things, the closer we are to Him, the more evident it will be that we cannot make any decisions without Him, nor should we want to.

Influence

The closer I am to my friends, the more influence they have even with people in my family. For example, I have very close friends whom I have asked to speak to my siblings about different things because I know them, trust them and trust their experience on the matter. I think our friendship with God is similar. The closer we are with Him, invested in getting to know Him better and spending quality time with Him often, the easier it is for Him to trust us with His other friends. He can lead us to speak into the lives of others He loves because He knows us, trusts us and trusts our experience on the matter at hand. As friends of God, we have influence.

Secrets

Is there any real friendship that doesn’t involve the sharing and keeping of secrets? I think not. God has secrets too. Not the kind we have or think of, but the kind we only tell a few highly trusted ones just the same. God shares divine knowledge with His friends. If we are invested in our friendship with God, our lives will have evidence of divine knowledge and wisdom, secrets from the Most High God. We will know things we shouldn’t know, know how to do things we haven’t trained to do and know how to make certain decisions we know for sure we would botch without God’s insights. If you are a parent this is super important because believe it or not, your little angels will lie to you and hide things from you, but God! My children already know, the Holy Spirit will tell me so they might as well just tell me the truth. As friends of God, we can expect to be entrusted with His secrets.

Friendship isn’t one-and-done. Just because we decide to be friends with someone, doesn’t mean that the relationship will not require ongoing investment and maintenance. Our friendship with God is the same. He already decided to be your friend and as soon as you accepted His Son as Lord and Saviour of your life, you decided to be His friend too. Now the commitment, investment and ongoing maintenance come in. It won’t always be perfect. As our lives take on different shapes and seasons, so will our friendship with the Lord. The main thing is that we stay connected and committed to sharing our hearts with His heart. As we do, I believe He will fill our lives with evidence of our friendship with Him.