Ordinary Time 
Pause
Perhaps one of the most scandalous truths in the Bible is that God desires relationship with us. We struggle to comprehend it. That an all powerful Creator would care about us as anything more than subservient subjects.
Yet Jesus told his disciples that he considered them friends! Not servants of some distant, all powerful Deity, demanding obedience and reverence. Or even employees working for a benevolent Boss. But friends. Confidants. Partners. Maybe even co-conspirators.
God delights in us so much that God desires our companionship. So lean in close and contemplate the wondrous and beautiful truth that you are a friend of Jesus.
Listen
You are my friends if you do what I command you. I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:14-15
Think
There really are no secrets between close friends. They have heard all of our stories. They know our embarrassing moments, our thoughts, and our ambitions. They know us and see us as we really are.
Jesus makes it plain to the disciples that they are his friends. He reminds them that he has shared everything with them. All his plans, all his ideas, all his hopes have been laid out for them. There’s not much more for him to tell. Jesus is open and “real” with his friends and asks that they follow his example.
How can you follow Jesus’ path of friendship today? Who needs to see the real you? And who do you need to see?
Chad Senuta
Pray
Thank you Jesus for coming close and revealing yourself to me. Help me to see you as you really are, so that I can more fully become who I am. Teach me to be a friend who is open to sharing my true self. And make me ready to accept others as they are. Amen.
Go
May relationship with God fill you with the delight of the One who delights in you.
May friendship with Jesus teach you to love, as you have been loved.
And may the companionship of the Holy Spirit free you to live and to share that which has been freely given.
