We cannot choose our family members, but we can choose our friends. We often tell our close friends things we don’t share with our family members. When we are on top of the world or when we are facing a crisis, we will call our best friend and talk to him or her instead of a family member. We know that our friends accept us for who we are and they truly care about us.
We are often slow to recognize and to develop a relationship with Jesus who is our Best Friend throughout life. Jesus is with us from the time we get up. He is interested in everything that is happening to us. Jesus is there for us at every moment of our life, whether we recognize it or not. Yet he doesn’t barge in. Like a good friend, he gives us our space and our freedom.
Jesus waits patiently for us to invite him to enter into our lives at whatever level we choose. Jesus as a friend meets us where we are, he embraces us and he holds us close when the going gets rough. Jesus as friend helps us to find our way forward through life.
Could Jesus simply be an “imagined” friend rather than a “real” friend? I don’t think so. A cousin of mine often shared with me her relationship with her “Best Friend Jesus”. She talked with him throughout her day and she invited him to daily walk with her. She once told me: “A good friend knows your stories. Your Best Friend helped you to write them.
As I observed her lifetime of joys and great sorrows, I was struck by her even keel. She always had such deep inner peace. She constantly drew upon the rich, abiding relationship she had developed with Jesus. Though she never married, she never complained of being alone or lonely. At the end of her life, she was never afraid of dying. She was so looking forward to spending her eternity with her Best Friend – Jesus.
When I die, friends will go to my funeral. Good friends will cry, but my Best Friend will change my Facebook status to “Chillin’ with Jesus”.
