How do friendships flourish? They flourish because of mutual love, communication, attentiveness, and affection. They can deteriorate or die apart from these vital ingredients, and the same is true of our relationships with God. A relationship with God requires just as much intentionality as a relationship with another human being, and in some ways perhaps much more.
Friendship is a thing so misunderstood and misrepresented by my culture, as are most other concepts. Some people have mistake friendship for a sexual thing, another grounds by which to exclude members of the opposite gender and other races from their lives, and a thing that has far less power within it than it truly does. And a focused human friendship is powerful. In truth, it can arouse a longing for the type of relationship that humans could only have with a suprahuman being.
Marriage is often held up by Christians I've been exposed to as the pinnacle of human relationships, but it is, at best, just one of many kinds of relationships that humans can share. While it is said that marriage reflects the current and future relationships between Christians and God in a significant way, I do not think I have ever heard or read the same claim made about friendship in general. But it is true: friendships can capture a portion of the life that can be found in a restored relationship with God. Both types of relationships are built on knowledge of the other.
The best of our human relationships can indeed show us in part, even to a great extent, what it is like to enjoy relational intimacy with God. Even at their most intense, though, human metaphysical and epistemological limitations prevent the absolute deepest of intimacy. We can know each other, but not to the fullest extent. This is not because there are no people willing to show their inner selves to their friends or family members in full--I know for sure that I would love for my friends to see me as I am. I do not hide myself from my friends. Still, if they are beings like me (it's always logically possible that they are not!), then they cannot see into my mind, just as I cannot see into theirs. The aim of friendship (and the relationship of marriage by extension) may be to have one soul/mind in two bodies, yet human limitations prevent this total oneness from ever fully being reached.
Humans can share relational intimacy with each other that is so deep that it is impossible to describe it adequately using human language. I cherish my closest friends (not that I have many friends) in ways that my words and tears and physical affection could never communicate in full. I would rather die than lose them. But we are capable of having a deeper relationship with God than we can with any other human, in a sense, because whereas all beings like me cannot see into each other's minds, only into our own, God is not restrained by this limitation (Psalm 139:1-2). This allows for greater intimacy, although parts of this heightened intimacy are merely unilateral. I can derive comfort from the thought that he understands my motives, desires, and struggles, however complex or inarticulable, even when other people do not.
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