Freedom of God's Friendship

Whew, is it really Friday morning already? The past two weeks have certainly been a bit of a whirlwind. However, as indicated in the previous post, I want to take a few minutes to discuss God's friendship.

God's friendship

This certainly is not an easy concept to fully grasp. I mean, how many times do we totally miss it? Yet, somehow, we need to come to some kind of deeper understanding of this deep friendship. In preparing for my recent Kairos talk on God's friendship, I noted four key words in the outline that came with the talk: freedom, mystery, gift, and risk. Seriously, though, how does one tackle such an abstract topic as God's friendship? It turns out that oftentimes, God's friendship is right in front of us - if only we have the eyes to see it. In contemplating the talk, I decided to put this point to the test and look back over pictures in search of God's friendship.

Freedom

When I think of the freedom of God's friendship, several points come to mind.

• Friendships are not forced. We choose to enter into friendships with others. Others choose to enter into friendships with us.


• The freedom of true friendships enables those in the friendships to be more fully themselves.


• Within the friendship, we understand that mistakes happen. Despite these mistakes we continue to love and know, with confidence, that we are loved.


• We are free to love.

One of the pictures that I chose to highlight this point is included in this post. This picture is of one special lady, Clella. She taught me a great deal about the freedom of friendship. I tend to be a pretty awkward guy - particularly when it comes to dancing. Yet, whether in the the desert of the Dominican Republic, on the plaza in Woodstock, VT, or on the grocery store parking lot in Bremen, IN, Clella instilled in me a freedom to dance. She didn't care if I missed up. She didn't care if we looked goofy. In those elusive moments, we had the chance to live life freely and to its fullest.

If you are so inclined, please take a minute to share an example of the freedom of God's friendship. It just might be a sign of hope to someone else!

LT4,

Todd