Friendship with God
By Abba Jimmy ( Theoloscience )
One way to understand and see God is how we know and see a friend. God is a friend. All of us can identify with this way of understanding God. Most of us have had or have a friend and have enjoyed, or are enjoying, their company. Friendship adds value and flavor to our lives. Our life is better when we have a friend with whom we can share our thoughts, ideas, aspirations, fears, madness, and much more without being hurt or judged.
A friend is like a mirror in which we can reflect on ourselves. So having a friend with whom we can walk through this life is much better than walking alone.
If we have enjoyed or are enjoying a true friendship, we know from experience how painful it is to lose a friend — when we lose a friend, it is as if a piece of our being is ripped away. Interestingly, the pain of losing a friend is also a bit like the pain of losing a dog we loved. This happened to me with my dog Mr. “Frodo,” whose purpose in life was not to destroy the ring of power but to get people to pet him. I remember that when I lost Frodo, I dreamed about him almost every night, and instead of seeing only one Frodo in my dream, I saw 200 Frodos! — Strange! Such are dreams, strange.
But, returning to the topic at hand, God as a friend, we cannot go wrong if we see God as a friend. Indeed, that is what God is and wants to be for us: A Friend. Of course, you will tell me: But where is God? And I’m going to understand you, and I’m not going to blame you for asking that question.
Yes, you are right to ask, where is God? To answer your question, we first have to recognize that each of us is a compound of matter and spirit. Well, not only do we have a body, but we also have a soul. It has been said many times, and we have heard it: That we are “incarnated spirits.” Gee! That doesn’t sound very nice to say! But, in the end, it is the truth. We are a composite of body and soul, and the soul is intangible; it has no body by itself; the soul, our soul of each one of us, manifests and expresses itself through our body; If our soul did not have a body, it could not manifest itself. The soul needs the body to act, to interact with other people, and for everything we can do with our body; For example, sing, dance, eat, run, look at the stars, listen to Mozart, drink cappuccino, write a poem, feel peace, joy, fear, hate, and much more.
After these considerations, I am ready to answer your question, which is also my question: If God is a friend, where is God?
By the way, this is an excellent question. Let’s see in three points why it is an excellent question.
First, we need to see our friends with our eyes as corporeal people (that is, with a body). Therefore, we need to know where they are to visit them and plan things together.
The second reason why we need to know where God is as a friend is that many times we need to communicate with our friend at any time; and if we know where he is, we can quickly locate him, call him on the phone, or send him a text message.
Third, and this is crucial in any friendship, we need to share time and space together to laugh, overcome difficulties, walk, eat chocolate ice cream, or simply be present for each other.
After these three previous points, I will tell you where God is as a friend. Be patient, and I’ll let you know! Keep reading, or if you’re on the podcast, keep listening until the end.
When I was a little kid, my parents were not very religious; but they both loved and respected God and believed in Jesus Christ, the one sent by God. My dad loved reading Bible stories; Many times, while my mom was preparing dinner, dad would read the Bible to us. I have always considered those moments as nourishment for the soul and the body. Mysteriously, God, our friend, was there in the Word and at dinner communicating his life to us, his light, his love, his spirit.
Now, I can say that the presence of God is present in more than one way. Just like with a friend here on earth. For example, your friend may have moved to another state or country. However, thanks to our ability to communicate through technology, we can be far away and feel close to a friend despite the physical separation of hundreds and thousands of kilometers between us. So even though our friend is physically far away, he can be close to us by other means.
Similarly, God as a friend can also do the same. He can be far from us and yet be very close to us. So let me dig deeper and advance on this topic.
I will explain in three ways how we can know where God, our friend is.
First, we need to see our friends with our eyes.
We know that God, our friend became visible; he took physical form in a body like ours. He was born to a woman at a specific time in history and in a location of our geography. God became a man like us and dwelt among us. The four Gospels are documentary testimonies of the historicity of God our friend as a man. Then, God, our friend, became visible so we could see, hear and touch him. Therefore, God, our friend, is in the man He incarnated. And since God, our friend, became a man like us, there is something of God our friend in each person around us. If we propose to be so, we can see traces of God, our friend, in each person.
Furthermore, we can research history and read the Gospels to realize that God, our friend was here with us. He, therefore, is not far from us. Remember your grandparents who have already died; here they were with you, and although they are no longer with you physically, they are with you in another way. There is something of them in you. They are still present in you. If you close your eyes, you can look at them.
Second, we need to communicate with our friends.
If we learn to cultivate and develop this habit, we can communicate with God, our friend, through prayer. When we pray, God appears before us and is by our side. There He is next to you when you pray. Prayer is talking with a friend, in this case, with God. And God listens to us and answers us. Test and see, and you will see! It is not about saying, “I am going to put God to the test.” NO. It is about talking to God and letting Him listen and respond. Because He can and knows how to answer our prayer. Have you noticed that when we found a new friend, we took the time to be together? In the same way, we need to give ourselves time and space to talk to God through prayer to develop and grow our friendship. But, think for a moment, being a friend of God is something extraordinary and even supernatural since God is the Almighty; He gives His best to his friends.
Third, we need to share time and space together with our friends.
One day I was walking down the street with my mom; she took me by the hand. I was only four or five years old. She, my mom, told me something that I have never forgotten. We passed in front of the church (the parish where I was baptized). [The Parish of San Francisco de Asís]. My mom and I entered the church and she, pointing to the sanctuary, told me with serene conviction: “This is the house of God.” I immediately concluded: If this is God’s house, then God lives here: Here is God. From that day on, the parish exerted an inexplicable attraction on me. As I was growing up, every time I passed by, I went into the church, heard the silence, and sensed the stillness. And I remembered my mother’s words: “This is the House of God.”
So, if we are to cultivate friendship with God and find out where God is, we can go to the holy places to have an encounter with God, our friend. In the House of God, we can be sure that our friend God will receive us. He will listen to us and communicate with us. Also, if we want to know where God is, we must search hard until we find him or until he finds us. A friend will always look for his friend. Otherwise, they would not be friends. If they do not look for each other, there is no friendship. True friends seek each other. That is, they are interested in the well-being of the friend. This is God. He is a friend; he loves friendship. God grows as a friend in friendship. Unfortunately, many do not see God as a friend but as a distant, mysterious, and inaccessible being. That’s not how God is. On the contrary, God is close, a friend, and he is very interested in our friendship with him.
We can also remember that friendship is for life. If we have a friend, we are friends forever. In the end, it can take us a lot of work to establish a friendship with God and then cultivate it, but if we do it, our life will have a higher and more transcendent meaning. If we are friends of God, we will be like the friends of God who, throughout history, have left a profound mark on the history of humanity. Indeed, it is the friends of God who stand out for having had and for having lived a life full of meaning, of irrefutable value and happiness. Some examples, Andrés, Juan, Pedro, Nathanael, Pablo, Juan Crisostom, Agustin, Tomás, Edith Stein,
Ultimately, whether to become friends with God rests in our hands. If we become friends with God and cultivate our friendship with God, it will be because we have made a very personal decision.
Greetings to you all. Abba Jimmy (Theoloscience) Theology and Science working together.
