True Friendship

This morning as I was reading the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, the following paragraph jumped out at me:

"Through the use of reason, we can learn much about God from both creation and conscience, but Revelation enables us to learn about God's inner life and his loving plan to save us from sin and share in his divine life. No amount of unaided thinking could penetrate such a mystery. God freely chose to share this hidden mystery with us. God's sharing was an act of friendship for us, revealing himself as one reveals his or her heart to a friend. Love does such things." (chapter 2, p.12-13)

Is friendship a truly human experience?  When we move beyond the surface of communication to expose something about our inner lives, we start to become vulnerable, and something greater than ourselves is created.  True friendship can not always be two people just discussing their day and the weather and what they had for breakfast, but must cross an exterior boundary, to reveal something otherwise unknown about the individual offering friendship.  This is what God does in his love for us.  We can see a concrete example as Jesus refers to his disciples as friends.

"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15)

The disciples became friends of Christ because he revealed something of himself (the Father's plan of salvation) to them that they didn't know.  In the same way, are we not called to love one another and even our enemies?  If love is open to friendship, then aren't we called to open our lives and what God is doing in us to others we meet in a way that would welcome them as friends?  I think we must really ask ourselves how often we are in a rush or consciously avoid opening our lives to people we come across regardless of who they are.  How else will people see God in us?  How else can we be true disciples?