Friends

They say we don't choose our family but we choose our friends.  

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. "If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world-- therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ’servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.' "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. - John 15:12-27

Jesus clearly chose the twelve who would accompany him in his ministry.  That much is documented.

After treating them as his disciples and students, he finally called them friends in today's Gospel reading.

I thought about the many friends I have been blessed with over the years and I tried to think of when I chose them as friends.  I couldn't pick a specific moment when that happened.

In a way, they were chosen for me, and I think that is a God thing.

Friendship involves mutual affection, and that doesn't happen immediately.  It grows deeper and deeper with time until you can truly call the person a friend.

A friend is someone you would do anything for, and you would do it without being asked.

Over the past week, I have seen the love of so many friends who came out and expressed their condolences for my wife, Kathleen.

She had and has so many friends, and so do I.

It is a true blessing, and I have to believe God has his hand in it.  We were guided to special people and they were guided to us.

I can understand what Jesus felt about the folks he had gathered up and watched become his friends and friends to each other.

Friendship is the love of God touching one another's hearts and souls.

It is really not a choice we make when we find a friend.  It is an acceptance of God's gift.

More to come...