{"id":5669,"date":"2026-08-24T09:06:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5669"},"modified":"2026-08-24T09:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:06:30","slug":"friends-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/24\/friends-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God.<\/em>

Friends<\/strong>

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone; Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.\u00a0<\/em>

Those are the opening lines to the folk ballad Fire and Rain<\/em>, the 1970 song that signaled James Taylor\u2019s arrival as one of America\u2019s up-and-coming musical artists.\u00a0

His state of mind was precarious.\u00a0Struggling with depression and a downward spiral of dependence on alcohol and heroin, he had moved to London to jump-start his fledgling career.\u00a0

While recording his first album overseas, the parents of his childhood friend Suzanne Schnerr committed her to a mental health facility.\u00a0Upon her release, she threw herself in front of a train.\u00a0

Taylor\u2019s friends, fearing for his emotional stability, waited six months to tell him the news.\u00a0He was rocked by the tragedy, since he himself had spent nine months at a similar facility. Fire and Rain<\/em> became a means of expressing his anguish.\u00a0

I\u2019ve seen fire and I\u2019ve seen rain.\u00a0I\u2019ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I\u2019ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.<\/em>

Taylor recruited another young songwriter to play the piano during the song\u2019s recording session.\u00a0Her name was Carole King.\u00a0Struck by the poignancy of the lyrics, she composed a song of her own. It was a personal response to Taylor\u2019s admission of loneliness: You\u2019ve Got a Friend<\/em>.\u00a0

When you\u2019re down and troubled and you need a helping hand, and nothing, oh, nothing is going right.<\/em>
Close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there to brighten up even your darkest night.<\/em>

King\u2019s song mimics life.\u00a0It begins in a minor key, then shifts into major chords as it communicates the hopefulness of friendship.

The first thing about creation that God said was \u201cnot good\u201d was the aloneness of the first human being (Genesis 2:18).\u00a0None of us is wired to go through life flying solo.\u00a0To \u201cwin\u201d all by ourselves is to lose.\u00a0

When people describe the primacy of relationships, marriage deservedly gets a lot of attention.\u00a0Friendships tend to be overlooked \u2013 an oversight that prevents us from recognizing the emotional, spiritual and even physical wellbeing that comes from walking with close companions.

Consider the friendship landscape of our culture.\u00a0

Imagine a triangle.\u00a0The base represents the number of individuals that the average person living in our society knows by name.\u00a0That tally falls somewhere between 500 and 2000. The middle of the triangle represents core acquaintances \u2013 people whom we know well enough to meaningfully meet and greet.\u00a0That number stands between 20 and 100.\u00a0The top of the triangle represents close friends.\u00a0It\u2019s going to be a single digit \u2013 somewhere between one and seven.

So here\u2019s the good news.\u00a0Remember back in high school when it seemed that certain people \u2013 \u201cthe cool people\u201d \u2013 hogged<\/em> all the best friends?\u00a0The simple truth is that they were merely collecting acquaintances.\u00a0They were filling up the middle of their triangles.\u00a0Most human beings are capable of sustaining only a handful of truly close friendships.

And you don\u2019t have to be beautiful or insightful or popular or rich or athletic to make and to be a true friend.\u00a0

Many of us have suffered through nights of inner dread wondering if we would ever find close companions or if they would ever find us.\u00a0The reassuring discovery is that no matter what our age or stage in life, friendship is God\u2019s equal opportunity relationship.

And that brings us to one of the Bible\u2019s genuinely startling metaphors: Friendship with God.\u00a0

Is such a thing even possible?\u00a0<\/em>

Across the spectrum of the entire Old Testament, only two characters are described as being \u201cfriends of God.\u201d\u00a0One is Moses (Exodus 33:11).\u00a0The other is Abraham (Isaiah 41:8).\u00a0Since Moses and Abraham are arguably the two most important figures in the history of ancient Israel, it would seem to be off-the-charts presumptuous for anyone else to claim, \u201cYou know, God and I go way back.\u201d\u00a0

That\u2019s why Jesus\u2019 statement to the Twelve in John 15:15 is so stunning:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m no longer calling you servants, because servants don\u2019t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I\u2019ve named you friends<\/em> because I\u2019ve let you in on everything I\u2019ve heard from the Father\u201d (The Message<\/em>).

What identifying labels (in this case, metaphors) appropriately describe the dozen men who walked with Jesus for something like three years?

They were his apprentices, learners, or disciples \u2013 that is, students of his way of life.\u00a0They were also his apostles \u2013 the \u201csent-out ones\u201d charged with sharing his message with others. From yet another perspective, they were his servants \u2013 an honorable word in that culture that described their loyalty to him as Master.\u00a0

But Jesus blows all those categories away at the Last Supper.\u00a0

Here\u2019s how Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus\u2019 words: \u201cDon\u2019t ever think of yourselves again as mere underlings.\u00a0Or as contract workers.\u00a0We\u2019re friends<\/em>.\u00a0Since friends \u2018do life\u2019 together, stick close to me.\u00a0I want to hear your secrets, your disappointments, what you dream about, and whatever else is on your mind.\u00a0That\u2019s what friends are for.\u201d\u00a0

But what if you\u2019ve utterly failed to hold up your end of the bargain when it comes to walking with Jesus?\u00a0You\u2019ve been distracted. Or bitter. Or bored.\u00a0That would seem to preclude any possibility of friendship.

Jesus, however, hasn\u2019t thrown in the towel.

In Matthew 11:19, his enemies \u2013 as part of an ongoing attempt to savage his reputation \u2013 come up with what they think is the ultimate putdown.\u00a0They accuse Jesus of being \u201cthe friend of sinners.\u201d

Which is just about the best piece of news any of us could ever hear.\u00a0No matter where you fall on the spectrum of spiritual failure, Jesus is offering his hand.

Will you take it?<\/em>

In a world that can overwhelm us with fire and rain, we will never find a closer friend.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God. Friends Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone; Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.\u00a0 Those are… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[156,1159],"class_list":["post-5669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-friendship","tag-metaphors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5671,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669\/revisions\/5671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}