Is God my Friend?
If we belong to Christ, we enjoy a wonderful intimacy with God. Through Christ, we know God as “Father” and he calls us his “sons”; Jesus himself calls us “friends” and “brothers” (Romans 8:15, Galatians 3:26, John 15:15, John 20:17). So, what could be more natural than to think of God as our friend? God himself even suggests that his people may call him “My Father, my friend” (Jeremiah 3:4). And yet such references are extremely rare: there is a strange reticence in the Bible around calling God “friend.”
Is that because it is just too vague? It is possible to be someone’s ‘Facebook Friend’ without having any meaningful relationship with them. Similarly, it is possible to think of God as “friend” without it meaning very much. It is certainly all too easy to take God too lightly. When I was a student, the Christian Union received a letter from Helen Roseveare who was one of the honorary vice presidents. She warned us against being too familiar with God, urging us not to forget how holy he is – a warning we needed to hear.
It is not that God is unfriendly. It is rather that he is far more than a friend, and his friendship cost him the blood of his own Son. So let us not speak lightly of God’s amazing friendship, but confess: “I have frequently taken carelessly upon my tongue a name never pronounced above without reverence and humility” (The Valley of Vision).