I Call You Friend

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Remember the excitement of being chosen for a team? Whether it was for a neighborhood game or a varsity sport, being chosen certainly put a glow in your heart and a smile on your face. Someone wanted you! 

Now, imagine Christ calling out your name! Imagine it, and realize that it has already happened. He hasn’t chosen you to be on a sports team, though. No, this is something much better, much deeper. It’s more profound and more personal: He’s chosen you to be His friend. His friend!

Christ doesn’t want to be just an acquaintance, someone you talk to mostly about the weather. He doesn’t want to be merely someone you read about once in a while, a distant figure who did great things for people 2,000 years ago. And He doesn’t want you to think of Him as a kind of automatic favor-dispenser. 

No. He wants to have a relationship with you – a close relationship with you. He wants you to know that He’s chosen you to be His friend. 

So turn to Him like you do your human friends. You don’t have to present to Him only your ‘good’ side; share with Him your deepest desires, fears, successes, and frustrations. He knows about them anyway – why not tell Him about them? And don’t just give Him just the news; tell Him how you feel about what’s going on. Learn to be honest with Him, and then open your heart to hear what He might say to you about what you’ve shared. That’s what true friends do, isn’t it? We share our hearts with each other. Sometimes we talk and sometimes we listen. We learn from each other. We affirm and encourage each other. We make ourselves vulnerable and trust each other. Over time, the bonds of friendship strengthen and we grow closer. 

Christ wants that kind of relationship with us. Our God wants to be friends with us! Let that sink in; it may take quite a while to do so! It’s an incredible truth we can hold onto. He wants us to trust Him and open our hearts to Him.  

Christ knows you more intimately than you know yourself, and He loves you more deeply than you could ever imagine. He could never not love you! He sees where you’re strong and where you’re weak; He sees you try and fail; He sees your heart and your motives. He sees all of it, and loves you with all of it. So share all of it with Him. Let Him affirm you, console you, teach you, encourage you, and strengthen you. Let Him fill you with His love and His peace. 

Christ has chosen you to be His friend. Let the wonder of that reality sustain you and bring you joy.

“I have called you friends… It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.” 

– John 15:15, 16

Let all I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

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P.S.

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He Wants YOU on His Team

 

 

“(Jesus said:) ‘It is not you who chose me, but I who chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you.’”

--John 15:16

 Christ wants us to be clear on this. It makes a difference:  When you choose something -- for example, to sign up for a class or support a particular cause – you may not know if you’ll fit in or if you’re needed. The person in charge might not know anything about you except your name, if that.

But Christ has chosen you. He wants you on His team. He knows everything about you. He loves you. You are valuable and necessary in His mission! Teresa of Avila explains why:

‘Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good.

Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands.

Yours are the feet.

Yours are the eyes.

You are His body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.’

 God needs you to get His message out to the world! Think of the circumstances surrounding where you live, the work you do, and the people you interact with both professionally and socially. God has chosen you to show His love in those places, with those people, using the gifts and talents He’s given you. That’s why He created you with those particular skills!

When we accept Christ’s appointment and root our actions and intentions in Him, we’ll bring Him closer to the people around us. True, we’ll make mistakes. He knows this, and still He chooses us to be on His team. He helps us use these experiences to grow in our faith and trust in Him so that we may do the works that He does and even greater ones than these (see John 14:12).

God has chosen you for a reason: There’s no one else in the world like you to do the work He needs you to do!

“Thank You, Lord, for choosing me! Show me how and where I can bring You to the people around me.”

 

Thank you for reading my reflection. © 2022 Gina Bedell     Comments are always welcome! Feel free to share it with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Thanks!

 p.s.

We continue to pray for an end to the war. If you’d like to help the people of Ukraine through the Cleveland Maidan Association, you may use either PayPal or a credit/debit card here:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/...