I have called you friend

You know it’s funny…. Sometimes I think that if I do everything “right,” then my mistakes will be few. I am coming to realize lately that doing things right or wrong or making mistakes isn’t what it’s all about. The way that I appear to others isn’t important. The way that I love them is. Max Lucado says that the way we treat others is the way that we perceive God is treating us. I would add to that and say that the way we treat (or feel about) ourselves is the way that we perceive God is treating (or feels about) us. If I see God as a legalistic leader with a notebook checking off my good and bad, then I will do the same to others. If I see Him as a loving Father who runs out to meet us when we return home, then I will be joyful when others come home to Him. If I see Him as a suffering Savior who died to save the worst of sinners, then I will love others with the hope that because God saved me, He will save them.
Sometimes I can’t believe that He would save me, so I am hesitant to believe that He would save others. I find myself putting limits on God. I can often see the problems, but fail to see the solution that we as believers already have – Christ! My human mind has so much trouble processing and understanding the fact that what God wants from us more than anything else is ourselves. To spend time with Him, to be honest with Him, to yield ourselves fully to Him.
I have found the Psalms very helpful for this -- taking a leaf out of David's book and being more honest than I have been in a long time. God knows our deepest longings, our deepest wounds, and our deepest joys. He desires that we share them with Him. He desires intimacy with us. Part of me says, "How in the world can God desire intimacy with me?" and part of me knows that He does. With God, it is reached in conversation, sharing the deepest parts of our souls. Jim Elliot says this: Friendship is not measured in what I share, but what another has shared with me. God has called me friend, making His business my business by telling me all about it. Will I call Him my friend, sharing with Him my business, which He already knows?