When we accept God’s offer of friendship and commit ourselves to offering our friendship to God, our lives take new turns. Sometimes slight, sometimes significant.

"Follow me," Jesus the friend says and, because of our friendship, we are willing to do precisely that.

Friends trust each other. That is why Augustine could say so boldly,

"Love God and do what you will."

Because if you love, your will is God’s will.

To you who are struggling with matters of theological interpretation, worried that you don’t know this or can’t believe that, I humbly urge you to accept God’s loving friendship and offer your friendship back to God.

Of course you will stumble, of course you will fall, of course there will be others more holy, more knowledgeable, more adept at things religious but, know this, there will be none more loved than you.

For the promise of God is of friendship. To all the world and also to you.

A friend does not need to earn love. It is freely given. Joy is ours when we freely give it back to God.

Salvation doesn’t begin by being good.

It begins by becoming a friend.