Friends of God: Speaking and Listening

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  
John 15:15 ESV

First posted May, 2018

The other day I had this conversation with my Friend:

ME: Yes, Lord. We are friends ... we go way back, don't we? 

LORD: Farther back than you think!

ME: Oh yes, Lord!

LORD: "Chosen in [Me] from before the foundation of the world ..." (cf. Ephesians 1:4)

ME: Thank You! Oh thank You!

Friend ... a friend of the Lord of heaven and earth. Amazed. And He is a hearing and speaking God. He reveals what He has heard to me His friend.

Then I read in that day's Scripture reading*:

Friendship with the Lord is for those who fear Him.
With them he shares the secrets of his covenant.
Psalm 24:15 NLT

And He has shared and I have heard Him, time after time. It's my birthright because "His sheep hear His voice" time after time (cf John 10:27).

And this is true of you too, O child of God, friend of the Lord of heaven and earth. You go way back with Him ... farther back than you think. And He shares with you what He has heard from His Father and yours. He shares the secrets of His covenant promises with you ... mysteries that defy human intellect but are revealed by the Holy Spirit to His friends, those who know Him (Be sure to read 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). 

It is no surprise that the Bible uses hearing, not seeing, as the predominant image for the way human beings know God. They can't walk around God and take God in like a cathedral or an artichoke. They can only listen to time for the sound of God—to the good times and bad times of their own lives for the words God is addressing to, of all people, them.

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Wordswww.FrederickBuechner.com

*From my regular chronological reading of the Bible ... never a coincidence, always a God ordained moment.