Friends with Jesus

“Your flight has been canceled.” The notification popped up on my phone during team-building sessions. I tried to stay focused on the intense conversations about our personality styles while wondering what new travel plans I would need to embrace. Knowing that my driving nature can get things done but can also alienate others, I wanted to be present in the meeting. I breathed a prayer, asking Jesus to help me.

When we had a break, I looked for alternative flights home and saw that I’d have to stay another night. The delay settled like the proverbial final straw breaking the camel’s back; I felt pushed and prodded, exhausted from jetlag, deadlines, and the canker sores that appeared from a lack of sleep. I managed to hold my emotions together, but when a colleague expressed loving concern for me, I couldn’t suppress my tears any longer. As I tried to stifle my sobs, she took me to a private room, listened to me with grace, gave me the space to recollect myself, and reminded me where I could visit the ladies’ room to ensure the remnants of my tears didn’t pepper my face. In those harried moments she emulated Jesus’ friendship to me. I knew that she was part of His answer to my earlier arrow prayer.

We might feel jealous of Jesus’ beloved friends—Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—because they got to do life with Him in person, face to face. As I explore in Transforming Love, Martha served Him; Mary sat at His feet, learning from Him; Martha had a frank conversation with Him; and Mary even threw herself at His feet in despair. Jesus met them right where they were, loving them and calling them out of their sorrow and pain. Friendship with Him changed them more into the people God had created them to be.

But friendship with Jesus isn’t reserved solely for those alive when He lived in the ancient Near East. Jesus promises to be our friend too, and through the Spirit’s presence in our lives, He loves us day to day, moment by moment. We might not enjoy an embodied relationship with Him—yet!—but He promises to be with us and to love us. Even as He inspired the colleague to care for me as I released my emotions of frustration and disappointment over the changed flight.

Jesus welcomes us to bring to Him all of our hurts, pains, and laments. Later that night in my hotel room, I poured out my feelings of disappointment to God about not getting home when I thought I would. I sensed His peace filling me as I realized I wouldn’t have to stay up late packing and that I could now enjoy the pizza party with my beloved colleagues. As a line from Scripture wafted through my head and heart, I looked it up on my phone:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

Praying through the passage, I embraced Jesus’ freeing message. I typed out my prayer:

Lord, you say come to you. You know how weary and burdened I am. I need and long for your rest, Lord. Help me to put on your yoke. The one where you shoulder the load. I want to learn from you because I know that you are gentle and humble in heart. So much more gentle than I am! You promise to give me rest for my soul—rest even when I am distraught and my mouth hurts from these canker sores and I am not sleeping well. Give me true rest, Lord Jesus, I plead and I pray. Your yoke is easy and your burden is light. I embrace your yoke. Thank you for your love and peace, that which fills me up and makes me feel loved and content. You are my best Friend—I love you, and I receive your love.

Jesus wants to be your friend too. If you enjoy a deep friendship with Him, why not ponder and pray through how you can spur a loved one to embrace this wonderful relationship? If you long to be known by Him and to know Him better, you could take any small step of turning to Him. He, like the Father in the Prodigal Son story (see Luke 15:11–32), will run toward you with open arms as he exudes joy and welcomes you into his loving embrace. Know that friendship with Jesus will change and transform you.

–Written by Amy Boucher Pye. Used by permission from the author. Click here to connect with Amy.