The Kind Hands of a Friend

My friend and I have mutual love. The awareness that I am a friend gives me confidence that the one to whom I am a friend loves me from a pure heart and does this with all his soul. Jesus by His example teaches us such a relationship and gives me faith that we are also loved by Him. But in earthly friendship we can visibly show how such love can exist in the world.

At the very beginning of our mutual relationship, all my hormones come alive inside me and bring me so much joy and inspiration from the novelty of what is happening that my whole life turns into one continuous celebration. It seems to me that I have gotten to Heaven, from which I will never descend. And the love between me and my friend is so unusual and beautiful that I do not want to leave this happiness. And with all this sounds a constant prayer of gratitude for all God's blessings that are contained in obedience to the commandment about love for one another.

My pleasure center received what it desired, and my soul experienced complete satisfaction from the friendly touch to my heart.

Days pass, and our love for one another grows stronger, and my internal experiences move into the stage of stable work. The novelty of relationships leaves, opening the way to everyday constancy, in which there is no longer a celebration, but there is that firm stability that relies not on fleeting feelings and emotions, but on a solid principle taking its origin from God's Word. I understand that the love between us is eternal, and the friendship that was born once has a very deep foundation and rests in God's hand. And it is precisely this calm confidence that begins to form between us the strongest ties that day by day grow stronger, never to break.

Sometimes in our heartfelt communication another hormonal surge slips through, to decorate the relationship with its influence and bring some emotional coloring to our friendship, but the mind has already gone far enough and so firmly established my will on heavenly principles that any hormonal changes or their absence will no longer be able to shake us or destroy anything between us.

I do not always have a friend nearby and can touch or hug him. If I were looking only for in-person friends, then perhaps it would take me a very long time to get to this. But modern means of communication and virtual communities allow me to very quickly find those who are close to me in spirit and have close relationships with Jesus. This is one of the features of our time that should be taken into account, and it must be used for the benefit of the soul.

Not all friends may have ideal family conditions where I can be warmly welcomed into their home. But thanks to modern communication, I can very quickly get into a friend's heart, bypassing many distances, obstacles, and borders, establishing myself in this heart forever.

The recent meeting of friends from our School showed how simple and joyful it is to see and receive those with whom you have already united and grown close spiritually, without communicating with this person in person.

The hands of a friend are able to hug you, bypassing huge distances, and perform the same comfort and healing as if this friend were nearby.

Look, where is Jesus physically located now? Very far away, where no one from among people will ever be able to get. But at the same time, through the Holy Spirit, the Lord is near all who call upon Him and who want to have very close relationships with Him. And we accept such an approach by faith and receive real answers to all our needs and expectations.

But when the conversation turns to earthly relationships, many tune themselves to in-person relationships and categorically do not want to have anything virtual, losing many advantages in this way and not receiving what they desire. And the heart needs a friend who can touch the strings of your soul and play a quiet melody of love, understandable to both of you.

Love cannot be touched with hands, and not all people can be touched. The kind hands of a friend are able to overcome any distances to touch my soul precisely when it very much needs this and is open to such relationships. The Lord knows the needs of my friends and very often prompts me to do something for them just like that, spontaneously, but from all my soul. And this works.

And how pleasant it is to perform work, knowing that there are people who are waiting for what will come out of your hands, so that they can immediately receive it and together with you have joy from such a blessing.

Take, for example, these lessons. They come out in real time, on certain days. And someone is waiting for this, like hot pies, to share with me the joy of tasting new revelations and thank God for it. I really like Christ's words about this activity. We read in Matt. 24:45-46: "Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing." And our joint joy from the common spiritual meal brings our hearts closer, and the message of love and friendship that we have been studying for so many years unites us into one big friendly family.

In my practice of acquiring virtual friends with whom I had to enter into close relationships, I have never once experienced anyone being disappointed in our friendship at a personal meeting.

The kind hands of a friend are always open to support you in a difficult moment with their prayers, kind words, and heartfelt joy. A friend feels your heart and is always ready to participate in all your plans if there is an acute need for this.

It happens that I do not need so much help from a friend as the awareness that I am needed by someone, I bring benefit and joy to someone. And if I know that someone loves me from a pure heart, then this provides such powerful support in many matters that I do not even need the words of this friend. The very understanding that I am loved endows me with wings, and I can accomplish very much, for which in another case there would be neither desire nor strength.

And what do my kind hands do with my friends? I have rich experience of how many blessings come into the lives of people with whom you share from all your heart what you receive from God. It is always so joyful for me to take love from Heaven and, passing it through my heart, pour into the friend's life streams of God's blessings, adding to them my human qualities of soul and material goods. It is so pleasant to observe this.

How sometimes it is difficult to convey to my friends a simple truth about how I love them. For some, these are simple words without meaning, but I do not throw around such phrases just like that. And if I have said something like this, then I give a full account that I have this love in my heart.

I really like being a conductor of God's love. I take it from above to give it further, and observe those who received it. They think it is mine and are surprised at where I have so much. And I modestly point to the True Source, but for some reason friends decide that I am to blame and am rich with such abundance. As a result, we agree that it is all God's, and without Him we can do nothing. And God really likes to hug all of us at all times with our hands.

1. Please read Prov. 17:17; 27:9; John 13:34-35; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 4:16; Jer. 31:3; Col. 1:16-23; 1 Thess. 3:12; Eph. 4:11-16; Phil. 2:5; Rom. 12:9-10; 13:10 in light of this chapter.

2. What did you understand from this topic?

3. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

4. Can your earthly friend be a blessing to you for all your life?

5. Is there something in love for one another that this world cannot give?

6. Must love for one another be mutual, or is my one-sided decision enough, and the friend will someday love me too?

7. Does the verse from Amos 3:3 say something about our friendship? Amos 3:3: "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?"

8. Does the Lord act in our friendship through our hands and mouths?

9. Does Jesus want to reveal His character to the world through our relationships with one another?

10. Do you think that to love one another is very difficult?

11. What can be said to a person who considers that to love a friend is hard work and an unbearable burden?

12. Have you had it happen that you want to express your love in words, but there are no suitable words?

13. Has Jesus ever hugged you with the hands of your friends?

14. Have you learned in this School to love one another?

15. Have you received enough light about love for one another to begin practicing it?