God's friends

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"You can learn a lot about a person by the friends he selects, and nothing about God proves more suprising as his choice of companions, the hand-picked objects of his intimacy. Abraham pimped for his wife, Jacob cheated his brother, Moses murdered, David murdered and committed adultry both - yet all of these end up on God's list of favorites. Jacob got his new name "Isreal" (meaning God struggler) after an all night wrestling match with God and ever since the name for God's people has harked back to that context. God's people are, literally, "the children of struggle." Philip Yancey

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