Friends - More on Luke 11

In our Book Group we talked about prayer, and the story Jesus told about the friend going to get some bread in the middle of the night. Everything Jesus says here about prayer is about relationships - Father, children, friends. Relationship is central to prayer. It is not a matter of technique or getting the words right - it is a child asking her father for what she needs, a friend going to get food for another friend.

When I was coming back from Boston, delayed by snow, I was thinking about who I could call to come to get me at the shuttle at midnight. There aren't too many you would ask to do that - but the ones you would ask, you know that they will do it if they can - because of friendship, or because they are family. It is all based on the relationship.

When Dan and Rachel were here getting together a team of ministry partners, they made some friends. When they left, someone told them: "When we first met you we didn't think we could be one of your ministry partners. But now we have to - we are your friends."

Jesus said in John 15 "No longer do I call you servants because the servant doesn't know what the master is doing. But I have called you friends..." Jesus brings us into partnership with God, into the family business, so to speak, giving us his own Spirit. We have taken His aims as ours. So we ask for what we need, for what our friends need. And we trust that he is not asleep, not indifferent- but is doing what we both want done.