My friend and I share mutual love. The knowledge that I am a friend gives me confidence that the person whose friend I am loves me from a pure heart and does so with his whole soul. By His example, Jesus teaches us to relate to one another in this way and gives me faith that He also loves us. In earthly friendship, however, we can visibly demonstrate how such love can exist in this world.
At the very beginning of our mutual relationship, all my hormones come alive within me and bring me so much joy and inspiration because of the newness of what is happening that my entire life becomes one continual celebration. It seems that I have entered Heaven and will never leave it. The love between my friend and me is so unusual and beautiful that I never want to leave this happiness. Amid all of this, a continual prayer of gratitude rises for all of God’s blessings contained in obedience to the commandment to love one another.
My pleasure center has received what it desired, and my soul has experienced complete satisfaction from friendship’s gentle touch upon my heart.
The days pass, and our love for one another grows stronger, while my inner experiences enter a stage of steady functioning. The newness of the relationship fades, making way for everyday constancy. The celebration is no longer there, but in its place is a firm stability that rests not upon fleeting feelings and emotions, but upon a solid principle originating in God’s Word. I understand that the love between us is eternal and that the friendship which once began has a very deep foundation and rests in God’s hand. It is precisely this calm assurance that begins forming the strongest bonds between us—bonds that grow stronger day by day and will never break.
At times, another hormonal surge flashes through our heartfelt fellowship, adding beauty to the relationship through its influence and bringing some emotional color to our friendship. Yet the mind has already advanced far enough and established my will so firmly upon heavenly principles that neither hormonal changes nor their absence can shake us or destroy anything between us.
My friend is not always physically near me, where I can touch or embrace him. If I looked only for friends whom I could meet in person, I might have to search for a very long time. But modern means of communication and online communities allow me to find very quickly those who are close to me in spirit and have a close relationship with Jesus. This is one of the distinctive features of our time that should be taken into account and used for the good of the soul.
Not every friend may have ideal family circumstances in which I can be warmly welcomed into his home. Yet modern communication allows me to enter my friend’s heart very quickly, crossing great distances, obstacles, and borders, and to become established in that heart forever.
A recent gathering of friends from our School demonstrated how simple and joyful it is to see and welcome people with whom you have already become united and spiritually close, even though you have never interacted with them in person.
A friend’s hands can embrace you across vast distances and bring the same comfort and healing as if that friend were beside you.
Consider where Jesus is physically located at this moment. He is very far away, in a place no human being can reach by his own power. Yet through the Holy Spirit, the Lord is near everyone who calls upon Him and desires a very close relationship with Him. We accept this reality by faith and receive real answers to all our needs and expectations.
But when the conversation turns to earthly relationships, many people limit themselves to in-person relationships and categorically refuse to have anything virtual. As a result, they lose many advantages without ever receiving what they desire. Yet the heart needs a friend who can touch the strings of your soul and play a quiet melody of love that both of you understand.
Love cannot be touched with the hands, and not every person may be touched physically. A friend’s kind hands can cross any distance to touch my soul at the very moment when it greatly needs this and is open to such a relationship. The Lord knows my friends’ needs and very often prompts me to do something for them for no particular reason—spontaneously, yet with all my heart. And it works.
How pleasant it is to carry out a work while knowing that there are people waiting for what your hands will produce, so that they may receive it immediately and share with you the joy of such a blessing.
Take these lessons, for example. They are released in real time on particular days. Someone awaits them like fresh, hot pies, eager to share with me the joy of tasting new revelations and to thank God for them. I greatly appreciate Christ’s words regarding this undertaking. We read in Matthew 24:45–46: ‘Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.’ Our shared joy in a common spiritual meal draws our hearts closer, while the message of love and friendship that we have been studying for so many years unites us into one large and close-knit family.
In all my experience of gaining online friends with whom I have entered into close relationships, I have never yet had anyone become disappointed in our friendship when we met in person.
A friend’s kind hands are always open to support you in a difficult moment through prayers, kind words, and heartfelt joy. A friend senses what is in your heart and is always ready to participate in all your plans whenever an urgent need arises.
At times, I do not need my friend’s help as much as I need the knowledge that someone needs me and that I bring someone benefit and joy. And if I know that someone loves me from a pure heart, this gives me such powerful support in many matters that I do not even need any words from that friend. The mere knowledge that I am loved gives me wings, and I can accomplish many things for which I otherwise would have neither the desire nor the strength.
And what do my kind hands do for my friends? I have abundant experience of how many blessings enter the lives of people with whom I wholeheartedly share what I receive from God. It always brings me such joy to take love from Heaven, pass it through my heart, and pour streams of God’s blessings into a friend’s life, adding to them my own human qualities of soul and material blessings. It is so pleasant to watch this happen.
How difficult it can sometimes be to convey to my friends the simple truth of how much I love them. To some, these are merely words without meaning, but I do not casually toss around statements like these. If I have said something of this kind, I am fully conscious and accountable for the fact that I have this love in my heart.
I greatly enjoy being a channel of God’s love. I receive it from Above in order to pass it on, and I watch those who receive it. They think it belongs to me and wonder where I have obtained so much. I modestly point to the True Source, but for some reason my friends decide that I am the one responsible and that I possess this abundance myself. In the end, we agree that all of it belongs to God and that without Him we can do nothing. And God greatly enjoys using our hands to embrace all of us at all times.
Bible Verses for Reflection
Proverbs 17:17; 27:9; John 13:34–35; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 4:16; Jeremiah 31:3; Colossians 1:16–23; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; Ephesians 4:11–16; Philippians 2:5; Romans 12:9–10; 13:10.