We often try to understand the meaning of our lives. For Christians, the answer is very clear: Jesus shows us the way. As we get to know Jesus in our everyday lives, God slowly reveals his will to us.

Listen to his call! That is precisely the great secret. Even if we feel lost, even if we are distracted and preoccupied with so many things, Jesus continually calls out to us. In particular, it is a call to friendship with him. He wants to be our friends, and to establish a lasting friendship with us. Jesus gave us a list of rules not simply to help us be “good people,” but to create and nurture a close friendship with us.

As in our own friendships, friendship with Jesus helps us to look at the world with his eyes. Since friends live and perceive things in a similar way, so our life, nourished by friendship with him, will have the same effect.

If we were friends with Jesus, we would look at the world as the creation that God the Father gave us to be good stewards. We would also look at others as brothers and sisters to whom we lay down our lives for love. Last of all, we would look at ourselves as beloved children of God, who are never abandoned by him, even when we are suffering or in sin.

If we looked at and felt all things in this way, would we not live a happier life?