The friendship we enter into with God has limitless patience,
infinite love, and insurmountable amounts of empathy. That
is the beauty of the ultimate friendship with Jesus. He is constantly
available for us, constantly reaching out to us, constantly
giving us advice, and He even left us a whole book
outlining how we should pursue Him and get to know Him
better. He cares for us, empathizes with us, hears us when
we cry. At times, He will simply sit and wait with us as we
talk. And He will remind us, in grand and small gestures, how
much He loves us. God’s love is, ultimately, outlined in John
15:13 (NIV), which says, “Greater love has no one
than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Christ did this for us. He made the ultimate sacrifice to save
us. There’s something to apply here, but it is not to actively
risk our lives all the time for someone else. However, there is
one question to ask yourself: are you willing to sacrifice our
most valuable resources for each other—your time and energy?
Are you open to talking to someone else about a complicated
idea for a while?
Or would you rather sit and work and ignore that?
We have obligations as students, as teachers, as caretakers, as
sons and daughters, and as many other roles. Yet we cannot
simply “pause” our obligations—whether as a Christian or,
simply, as a good friend.
I encourage you: reach out to someone. There doesn’t need
to be a pandemic or other crisis to have an excuse to talk to
someone. Strengthen the relationships you have. Do not let
your mind drift to considerations and anxieties about your
work, or your internship, or your classes. Let it drift to comfort
and safety amidst the friendships that matter: the relationships
with people we continue to hold dear, and the relationship
with God, our Creator and our Friend. So I encourage you:
go, and love your friends.
I’d like to impart one last piece of insight from what I originally
wrote regarding friendship. While I found good ideas from
this long, unpolished essay from a different time, it is
still written by a man struggling to understand why friendship
can be so beautiful to be part of yet heartbreaking to
experience at times. I discovered something in it that warrants
sharing, especially in as challenging and as complex of times
like these. When I wrote this in February, I did not know how
true it would ring today.
30 Fall 2020