Who is your best friend?
a meditation on the greatest friend of all
I can remember when I was in middle school and people groups started changing. The social dynamic shifted from everyone mingling with each other to a certain degree, and specific groups of people started to coalesce. Friends somehow got the Google treatment, and it became important where they were ranked and how relevant they were to you and you to them. There came a new importance of having “best friends.”
As someone who mostly sat and watched from the sidelines as people, their attitudes, and their associations began to change, I slowly ended up with few good friends left. Evidently, I wasn’t worth many people’s time, and people weren’t my thing at that time in my life, either. However, it was oddly isolating. Out of around a hundred classmates, there was only a meager handful of people who really wanted to spend time with me.
Who was your best friend in middle school? In high school? Do you still remember them? Do you still talk to them? Things in this world are in constant flux, and people are no exception. If you do still interact with them, do you still consider them your best friend? Priorities change throughout life. People move on. Sometimes, the whole world moves around us, and we can become paradoxically alone while in a crowd.
Loneliness and isolation are real. The reality of this really hit hard during the pandemic, but we don’t always recognize it every day. Sometimes being alone is good since we all need a break from everything that fills up our world on occasion. But many times loneliness is painful. Sometimes, it hurts when we desperately want someone to watch over us, to talk with us, to spend time with us, and there is no one who is available to do that.
As Christians, we can get this notion worked up in our heads that we’re here and God is distant. After all, when we talk to him, there is no verbal answer. God feels so far off, and we can feel doubtful that he’s actually watching over us and caring for us from that distance. It’s hard to trust that he’ll be there when we stumble and that he’s actually with us through the highs and lows of our lives.
Yet, the reality is that this is not true. Remember how the disciples were distraught after the events of Good Friday. They were scared. They were afraid, and they locked themselves behind closed doors. Jesus, the one who had walked with them, who called them to something greater, had now died. What seemed impossible had happened. How could the one who changed them, who raised the dead and gave spiritual life, have died so painfully?
Yet, the disciples were soon to be changed in the following days with Jesus coming back to walk among them again in his glorified, resurrected form. It was at this time that Jesus told them before his ascension, “Surely I am with you always until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, EHV).
Jesus’ words still apply to us. He is right here with us. Every moment of every hour of every day of our lives. He walks alongside us and is constantly guiding our footsteps closer to him.
Truth be told that we don’t often think of Jesus as our friend. We often use titles that make him feel far off and distant. We call him King. We call him Prince of Peace. We call him Lord of Lords. But Jesus isn’t that type of King. He isn’t some far-off monarch that barely thinks about his people. While certainly all of those titles are true of Christ, he is also our loving Savior who cares for each little moment. If he provided for our greatest need, he definitely cares about all of the small things, too, as he said, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33, EHV).
Christ also said, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:3, EHV). Jesus, God in human form, died for us and calls us his friends, and he’s also our friend.
In fact, Jesus is the greatest of friends. He gave up his life so that we could be with him forever. He bridges the gap between us and heaven. He’s the friend who is there to steady us when we’re about to fall. He’s the friend who is holding on and will never let go.
So what of it if nobody else wants to be our friend? The truth is that what the world thinks about us doesn’t matter in light of what Jesus says about us. Jesus is the friend who loves and cares for us. Jesus is the one who is guiding us with his light and leading us forward. Jesus is truly the greatest friend of all. All of our earthly friends pale in comparison to this heavenly friend.
One of the most beautiful hymns that speaks of this message is well-known and a treasured favorite:
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit;
O what needless pain we bear–
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!—What a Friend We Have in Jesus (ELH 385)
And, what a friend we truly do have in Jesus. We have a friend who will bear us up in all of our suffering. We have a friend who watches over us always. We have a friend who is there to hear us whenever we are struggling or anxious.
Jesus, the divine Savior, is the best friend of sinners like you and me, and let us always remember to think of him that way.