Denise and I are in the process of researching Jackson’s schooling options for next year as he enters the kindergarten world.  Last week we looked at New Covenant School and got to sit in on some classes, toured the facilities and had some face time with the Headmaster.  In addition to that, we also watched a 10 minute video on the school.  One of the things that stood out to me from the video was that two of the students talked about how their teachers were their friends. They didn’t say it in a way that came at the expense of respecting them as authorities.  Far from it. But they knew that these teachers were for them…that they wanted to see them succeed.  They also knew that they were there for them…that if they needed help understanding something, they were available to answer questions or explain something further.  They also knew what it was like to be a student, having been one in their younger days.

I didn’t have a teacher like that until college.  Mrs. Parks was my Intermediate Accounting professor and it was her unfortunate job to teach a class that had a 50% drop out rate. It wasn’t because she was a bad teacher, just the opposite.  It was because Intermediate Accounting separated the accounting majors from the business or finance majors. For some reason, Mrs. Parks was really nice to me and incredibly helpful.  She let me call her at home when I was stuck on an accounting problem set.  She even came up to campus on a number of occasions and did some evening tutoring for me and some of my classmates.  In the course of that semester, Mrs. Parks had become my friend.  She had demonstrated that she was for me and there for me.  I’m glad to be able to still call her a friend.

Thinking about these New Covenant teachers and Mrs. Parks, it got me thinking about Abraham, whom James said was a friend of God.  Do you remember why he was a friend of God?  Because he believed the truth God had revealed to him about who he was and what he had come to do in and through Abraham.  Abraham acted on what he knew to be true about God and himself.  Because of that, Abraham enjoyed the privilege of being God’s friend.

The same is true for us because of our union with Christ.  Through the gift of faith we have believed God and his promises and trusted in the finished work of Christ.  Therefore God has become our friend.  The question for me is do I believe that God is my friend?  Do I see him as being for me and being there for me?  Do I trust that he will do for me what seems unlikely in the face of trials?  The answer over and over again is Yes, and Amen!