Friendships are hard for me. I have very high standards before I call somebody a friend. A friend must be interested in knowing my mind. A friend must take enough interest to pursue knowing me. And a friend needs enough interest to pursue the friendship for the long term, and not just one time.
A don’t really consider a person a friend with a one time or occasional meeting. Instead it takes time to meet the criteria.
I think about God in terms of Friendship. God always meets the criteria – He knows my mind, He pursues me, and the interest is long term. It is I who fails to meet the criteria. How often do I get bored in the relationship or too busy and fail to check in? How often do I fail enough to hear His mind? How often do I get distracted and not pursue God for the long term, but only in short bursts of interest?
Sometimes people find me a hard friend to have. I am not light and flippant. If one is unwilling to engage in the meatier things, we are likely to not be real friends, but acquaintances. Is God as hard, or even harder, to engage in friendship as I? Is His criteria anything like mine? Or is it an even more difficult criteria? Or perhaps, God’s criteria is much simpler. Perhaps He removes barriers instead of erecting them.
If you are crude enough to listen, Bill Murray has wonderful words about friendship in the 80′s camp movie meatballs. He is a counselor talking to a boy who is somewhat of a social reject. He tells him “you will meet lots of people during the summer, but if you end up with even one that you can call friend you are really really lucky. ” probably not a completely accurate quote but you get the idea.