Servants

When I pray out loud with friends, some of them begin by saying, “Hi God.†At first, this struck me as odd and maybe even disrespectful. After all, God is the Creator and Supreme Ruler of everything. But I realized it actually makes some sense to talk to God in this casual way because God wants to be in this kind of relationship with us: personal, everyday friendship. And knowing that He is also the amazing, glorious, almighty King of the universe makes that friendship even more incredible!

Think about it. When Jesus—who is fully God and fully human—was living on earth, people hung out with Him. They went for walks and ate snacks and laughed at jokes together. Jesus wasn’t serious all the time.

Jesus came to live with us, and this is still the kind of relationship God wants to have with His people. He wants to share everyday things with us. We can talk to Him about anything and everything. Prayers don’t need to be fancy or impressive, because we’re talking to our friend. It’s also pretty cool that we can pray anytime, because God already knows our thoughts. It’s like telepathy but better! He invites us into a lifestyle of sharing with Him, of being open and constantly interacting with Him (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

And even though God already knows everything we’re experiencing, and He knows everything we’ll ever say before we say it (Psalm 139:1-4), God still invites us to talk to Him. In fact, He loves it when we talk to Him! Because He loves us. One of the reasons Jesus came was to show us who God is, what He’s like, and what kind of relationship He wants us to have with Him. When Jesus let Himself be killed on a cross, He showed that God loves us so much that He’s willing to die for us. And Jesus’ death was powerful because it paid the price for all of humanity’s wrongdoing. Jesus came back to life and showed Himself to His friends because He wanted them to know Him and be with Him forever.

God made a way for us to be in close relationship with Him, no matter what we’ve done. If we’ve put our trust in Jesus, we can know that God has totally forgiven us, and nothing can separate us from Him anymore. He is always so near, so eager for us to reach out to Him. When we talk to God like a friend, I think it makes Him really happy. • Hannah Howe

• How have you heard people start conversations with God? How do you like to talk to God?

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.†John 15:13 (NLT)

Read Verses:

John 12:23-28; Galatians 5:13-15; Philippians 2:1-15