Day 11 of the 40 Days of Purpose

“Becoming Best Friends with God”

I have to admit that I am not too crazy about the term “best friend.” Even to the point that I discouraged my daughters from using it as they were growing up. It is overused and misused, and often creates an atmosphere of exclusivity and jealousy. I feel one’s mate for life should be their best friend, and trying to have other best friends can sometimes be detrimental to the marriage. Having a best friend relationship can cause one to not be open to other friendships and can cause others to feel left out. If you have a best friend other than you husband or wife, it should be because it has developed naturally over a period of time without the effort to make that person an exclusive best friend.

Okay enough on my philosophy about “best friends,” what about the idea of our being “best friends” with God? I would agree that if you are going to use the term, “best friend,” in describing your relationship with God, it should be based upon a relationship built upon your knowledge and experience of him and your communication with him. This demands much time in the Word and Prayer. It also needs to come with a journey of faith that has drawn you closer to God through the test of time. Knowing that I risk sounding like a hardnosed preacher here, but I really question the use of the term, “best friend,” in relationship with God if a person is not reading the Bible and talking to God in prayer. We would never speak of a person as being our best friend if we didn’t know any thing about them, never spent any time with them, and never talked to them. How then could we use the term for our relationship with God?

On the other hand, I may not treat God as my best friend, but he treats me like his best friend, for he knows me and always listens to me, no matter what I have to say. And no matter how long I go without talking to him, he is ready to talk when I am ready. He is constantly sharing himself with me and helps me understand. He always forgives me no matter how I ignore him or mistreat him. It makes me think of a little childhood friend I had by the name of Rocky. We were together constantly during the time when we were both starting first grade. I was a rough friend for Rocky for my experiments with engineering were dangerous for him. For example, my effort to hang a pipe from a chain on the swing set for a trapeze bar resulted in my dropping the pipe on his head. And my efforts to build a soapbox racer resulted in his sliding across the nail I left sticking up in the seat. The interesting thing about my relationship with Rocky was that he kept coming back. No matter what I did to him, he came back the next day to play with me. I know it may seem a strange comparison with God, but it seems like no matter what I do to hurt God, he keeps coming back. He is my “best friend,” even when I don’t treat him like it!

David