“A mere benefactor, however powerful, kind and thoughtful, is not the same thing as a friend.”

A thought by Dallas Willard (2012-04-24) from his book, Hearing God: Developing aConversational Relationship with God (p. 26). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Right before this thought Dallas says, “Sometimes today it seems that our personal relationship with God is treated as no more than a mere arrangement or understanding that Jesus and his Father have about us. Our personal relationship then only means that each believer has his or her own unique account in heaven, which allows them to draw on the merits of Christ to pay their sin bills. Or possibly it means that God’s general providence for his creation is adequate to provide for each person.”

But then he says, “But who does not think there should be much more to a personal relationship than that? A mere benefactor, however powerful, kind and thoughtful, is not the same thing as a friend. Jesus says, ‘I have called you friends’ (John 15:15) and ‘Look, I am with you every minute, even to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).”

He is my friend and he talks to me and if you have a relationship with him he does the same to you. That is such a tremendous benefit of his being my friend. The problem for many is they maybe don’t realize or cultivate that part of the relationship. We seem to do all the talking and don’t stop to listen either through his word or through our thoughts.

As Dallas also says, “The Spirit who inhabits us is not mute, restricting himself to an occasional nudge, a hot flash, a brilliant image or a case of goose bumps. Such simple reasonings add further weight to the examples set by well-known Christians that confirm the thought that ideally we should be engaged in personal communion with God. We might well ask, ‘How could there be a personal relationship, a personal walk with God—or with anyone else—without individualized communication?’”

Good question. He does talk to us.

So are we listening?

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