Friendship with God: Let’s Do This Together

 I always thank my God for you because of the grace that God has given you in Christ Jesus. In Jesus you have been blessed in every way, in all your speaking and in all your knowledge. The truth about Christ has been proved in you. So you have every gift from God while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to come again. Jesus will keep you strong until the end. He will keep you strong, so that there will be no wrong in you on the day our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God is faithful. He is the One who has called you to share life with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
~1 Corinthians 1:4-9Oh beloved, it is true. We used to be alone. Utterly. Alone. And we faced an eternity in the same state. The reality of being stuck in four dimensions, and headed for a death which would only wish for annihilation (and never find it), haunted us. And even with the idea that we could live forever in some better place, came a dread of existing by ourselves; with our own selves.

But G_d!

Somewhere over the sprawling and crashing of our tiny little minds, yells a Voice so deep and real and whole and freeing. He speaks Love to us, and confirms this Love by the actions He has already finished in both creating and redeeming us from the slave market of sin we had fallen into.

At first, we are astounded to hear and taste and see a Loving G_d so good to us. Everything He is – and has – is moving towards us. And we know from the flow, that there is absolutely no way we could have done any of this. Everything He pours into our new Lives is much too real, and way too everlasting for us to have any illusion about our own abilities.

We are babes in His arms. He is our Papa, and now we have been adopted into a family both enormous and whole. We have a seat at the table of this One with our name on it. And the meals He serves are the most delicious fare. We are part of something we know will never end. Not ever.

But then it goes deeper. We find that He is not just with us, He is within us. And we are in Him. The loneliness we once felt has fled like darkness before His Light.

The utter desperation is replaced with profound delight.

The raging maladies of life become ringing melodies of hope.

The ongoing lies have been replaced with new Life in Him.

The complete frustration becomes a total festival of friendship.

We are alive and whole and united with Him. And it seems it can’t get any better than this.
But it does. The newfound unity with the Triune One is not only about me becoming real – it is about sharing the reality of this friendship with everyone else.

Can we see it? We never could have even begun to comprehend how far we had to be brought up out of the pit we were in. But an infinitely good and powerful and Loving G_d is the One who did the saving. And in doing His work, He did it so well that we are now, not just children, but sons. His sons. We are brothers of the Son and sons of The Father. We are in the family of G_d.

And in being made what we are, we are now equipped to fulfill a commission we never thought possible before (because it wasn’t). We are now the emissaries of freedom and fellowship to billions of dear people who are exactly where we were just a short time ago. But we don’t go to them alone with an idea. We go to them with Him in us. We are Living examples of what it means to no longer be alone.