What a wonderful week of hearing from many of you on the blog, by email, on facebook and even in person about your reflections on friendship with God. I learned so much from and about you. I want to thank Burr Datz for getting us started. Burr, you’re the best.

I hope many of you will enjoy reading what others thought about this topic by clicking on “Comments” below last week’s post “Friends with God.” You’ll find a variety of thoughts and some really interesting connections, distinctions and personal convictions. Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. (Those of you who responded by email and facebook, I’ve collected your responses and posted them there anonymously.)

Next week, I'll offer a few of my own thoughts based on some Scripture passages that have deeply impacted me along the way.

In the meantime, I’m not sure I could say it better than Jim Tottenham, who posted for us this series of questions to ponder as we ask ourselves what friendship is, and how it affects our understanding of being friends with God:

“Being a friend of God is an awesome question. I think about what that personally means to me and ask myself what it means to be a friend and does this apply to being God’s friend:

Do I stay in touch on a regular basis?
Do I put my trust in him?
Would I let him take any of my treasured possessions?
Would I rely on my friend to do the same for me as I would do for him?
Would I intentionally do anything to harm him in any way?
Would I drop everything and go with him if he needed me?
Would I defend his name if he was falsely accused of something?
Would I tell others about him and what he means to me?
Would I easily introduce him to others and not worry about their reactions?
Would I always believe in him?
Would I never abandon him?
Would I give my life for him?”