As friends of God, we are invited to become friends with all of God’s friends. God invites us to widen our circle of friends to include God’s friends wherever we meet them. There are no boundaries limiting God’s friends; friendship with God opens us up to a wider and wider circle of potential friends. Because God loves the just and the unjust, the best saint and the worst sinner, we are left with the task of asking God to help us love all his friends, even the ones who are our “enemies.” We may not be able, on our own, to love our enemies who are God’s friends. If so, we can ask God’s help to do so.
God’s relentless desire for our friendship—and for our friendship within the human family—is the driving motivation behind the story of our world and us. We exist because of this desire. Every possibility for our lives is created by God’s desire for us.
—Excerpted from God’s Great Story and You by William A. Barry, SJ
