Oh, great. So now I can’t even say that I was inspired by God. But what about this very book
I’m writing? You came to me and told me to do this!
Okay, this is as good a place as any to start our discussion on how to have a friendship with
God.
(3)Three
If you and I are to have a true friendship—a working friendship, and not just a friendship in
theory...
That’s important. Let’s stop here and make that distinction, because that’s an important
distinction. Many people think that God is their friend, but they don’t know how to use that
friendship. They see it as a distant relationship, not a close one.
Many more people do not even think of Me as a friend at all. That’s the sad part of it. Many
people think of Me as a parent, not a friend—and a harsh, cruel, demanding, angry parent at
that. A Father who will tolerate absolutely no failure in certain areas—such as, for instance,
how to worship Me.
In the minds of these people, I not only demand your worship, I demand it in a specific way. It
is not enough that you come to Me. You must come to Me by a particular path. Should you
come to Me by another path—any other path—I will reject your love, ignore your entreaties,
and, indeed, condemn you to hell.
Even though my search for You was sincere, my intent pure, and my understandings the best
I could reach?
Even though. Yes, even though. In the minds of these people, I am a stringent parent who
will accept nothing less than absolute correctness in your understandings of Who I Am.
If you are not correct in the understandings at which you have arrived, I will punish you. You
can be as pure in your intent as possible; you can be so filled with love for Me that you
overflow. I will cast you into the fires of hell nonetheless, and you will suffer there forever if
you come to Me with the wrong name on your lips, the wrong ideas in your head.
It is sad that so many people see You that way. This is not how a friend would behave at all.
No, it is not. And so the very idea of having a friendship with God, the kind of relationship you
have with your best friend, who will accept anything given in love, forgive everything done in
error—that kind of friendship—is unfathomable to them.
Then, among those who do see Me as their friend, you are right; most of them hold Me at a
great distance. They do not have a working friendship with Me. It is, rather, a very distant
relationship that they hope they can count on if they should ever have to. But it is not the day-
to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute friendship that it could be.