Wednesday, November 19, 2008

With friends like these...

I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking about a good friend of mine over the past couple of days.

Russell was a member of my first church in Indiana. He was a great guy. Can’t say enough good about him. He loved Jesus, cared about the truth. He was dedicated to the Bible, studied it regularly, was faithful to the church, seldom missed a service. In the ten years I was at Arba Friends, he was absent from fewer Sunday morning worship services than I was. His family was all there. He had no reason to go traipsing across the nation on vacation, so he stayed put. Sat with his wife, Maxine, near the front on the right side in the same pew every week.


I mentioned that Russell was a good friend, right? We were friends, but Russell and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. On important things like Jesus is the only way to salvation or God created all things, we were two peas in a pod, but on just about everything else, on nearly all the little stuff, we differed. It wasn’t that either of us was promoting heresy, we just had opposite opinions on trivial stuff. If I interpreted a passage one way, Russell saw it another. If I thought worship should change in any way, he thought I was out of my mind. With Russell and me my black was his white and his black, my white. I saw gray. He saw burgundy.

One Sunday I remember looking out at the congregation after making what I thought was an excellent point only to see Russell scowling at me. I mean literally. Brows furrowed. Lips scrunched up. The whole bit. It threw me off my rhythm. I stumbled in my delivery. What had I said? To this day, I have no idea. I seldom looked Russell’s way again while preaching.

On another Sunday morning near the end of my time at Arba, I finished my sermon and stepped down from the platform to go to the door to do the “nice sermon” line thing. Russell stopped me as I came abreast of his pew. “That sermon was a bit long, don’t you think?”

Without thinking I shot back, “Yeah, and you used to complain about my sermons being too short.”

I smiled and Russell chuckled. “Yes, I guess I did.”

I wish everyone could have a friend like mine. Friends like Russell are great. Really! They challenge you. They make you think. They are a gift. Thank God for your contrarian allies.

That’s what Russell was to me. He was on my team even as we argued. He loved Jesus and suspected that I might too. So he put up with me and my new fangled ideas without a lot complaining. When he did let a small gripe slip from his lips, I listened. He was an influencer at the church. Most generally, what he said went. And he was a godly man. He’d been following Jesus longer than I’d been alive.

I don’t know why, but I wanted you to meet my friend. I’m thankful for Russell and look forward to meeting up with him in Heaven where he's gone to receive his reward.

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