Hi again.
First of all, sorry that I promised over a year ago to write regular blog posts. All of my various blogs have run a bit fallow. It's partly because of a certain little girl who's taken over my life and my heart. But admittedly, it's also because it's been tough for me to focus. I have about ten different posts in the Drafts folder, but none of them quite ready for publication. If this is indeed God's calling for me, I'm hoping you can pray that God will help me live up to it.
But there's a much more important prayer request that I have right now. And to set it up, I need to take you back 34 years.
I grew up in the same town since I was born. From the time I was in Kindergarten to 6th grade I always had a very close group of little friends. I can still name them all--Chris, Dan, Mike, Billy, Geoff, and my very best friend David. By the end of 6th grade, I was one of the most popular kids in class. I still remember on the last day of 6th grade the teachers were giving out end of year prizes, and they saved me for last, to the applause of the whole class.
Things changed the next year. All of my childhood friends seemed to go off on their own and join different cliques. My friend David moved to Florida. And suddenly, I found myself very much alone. During lunch, I'd sit at the lunch table by myself. In gym class, I was always the last person chosen. And making it all worse, puberty hit me hard. I broke out in really bad acne. I was painfully shy. I had health problems.
I remember going home in tears on several occasions. My family, and especially mom, was always there for me, but that was little consolidation at the time when I'd spend the entire day alone and trying to not look awkward. But I know that mom prayed for me. In retrospect, I imagine she spent hours and hours on her knees for me.
Call it coincidence, call it a miracle, but that very year a guy named Jack moved into town and into my school. I don't remember exactly how we met, but I know that over time we really hit it off. We had the same quirky sense of humor and quick wit. We both loved to make really, really bad puns. During math class, we'd create rebus-style puzzles to each other (calling them "Uncle Rebus"). We talked about how we'd some day author a book, and over the years it became a running joke that something amusing that happened to us would be yet another chapter.
We also had the same interests. We joined the same clubs, from Olympics of the Mind to Model UN. So we got to know each other pretty well. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by a whole new group of friends, all of whom had the same slightly geeky vibe about us that was tempered by very quick wits and hilarious senses of humor.
Jack, our friend Sean, and I became inseparable. We'd go to movies together and just clown around. After seeing The Untouchables in the theater, for the next few years any time we came across a staircase we'd recreate the staircase scene. We'd frequent the Colonial Diner and always get the same dish to share--cheese fries. In our senior year of high school we went on a trip to the Soviet Union (back when it was still the Soviet Union).
Jack became quite popular--to the point of having his own radio show and being elected class president. But he never lost his sense of humor, and he never stopped being Sean and my best friend, even though his popularity probably could have catapulted him into all sorts of other social circles at an age and particularly in a school system where that sort of thing really seemed to be important to a lot of people.
College came, and everyone moved away. Jack went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, while I stayed local in Rutgers. I reverted to being somewhat awkward socially my freshman year. But all through college we kept in touch through letters, back when letter writing was still a thing. I still have all the letters, we'd talk about how we were and of course would insert inside jokes throughout.
Jack moved back to NJ after college, and we reconnected. In addition to everything else in common, we shared a love for the New York Yankees--and this was back in the early 90s when they were still pretty pathetic. We'd go to games together and once we started making some money we started buying the cheapest season ticket package, going to about 10-15 games a year. During the games we evolved some of our old traditions. We'd make awful puns around players' names. When the Yankees would flash people's birthdays on the scoreboard, we'd sing "Happy Birthday" to all of them. When they'd invariably show the "bloopers" videos, we'd provide silly color commentary. Over the years we got to experience some of the greatest Yankees moments together--the 2009 championship, the last day in the old stadium, the All-Star game, Mariano's last game, Roger Clemens's 4000th strikeout, and countless other milestones.
We also started going to Nets games during the Jason Kidd era and got to go to the NBA finals twice. We both also had a huge loyalty to our home state of New Jersey, and refused to follow the team when they defected to Brooklyn.
Jack and I went through our twenties and then through our thirties being single, watching our friends get married off one by one. We soon found that we had something else in common--we were both "nice guys". The kind of "nice guys" that every girl in the world wanted to be friends with, but no girl in the world seemed to want to marry. And so we started another tradition of exchanging "tales of woe". It seemed that throughout my 20s and 30s there wasn't a time when I wouldn't pine for a sister at church in silence, sometimes for years, and then when I finally got the courage to express my feelings (often after they'd built up to a ridiculous level) she'd soundly reject me, often with extreme prejudice. I'd have no one to talk to except for Jack. And same with him, he'd share with me his latest stories of how he'd be so smitten with a girl but it invariably seemed to always end with the girl wanting to be his friend but going with another guy (who was usually a jerk). In so many ways I found comfort in recounting my stories to him and then ending up laughing, at myself and at how pitiful our situations were.
Every year as Christmas rolled around, we made a tradition of spending it together--being Jewish he didn't celebrate it and being a TJC member neither did I, but we started our own Christmas tradition by "not celebrating" it together. Sometimes this mean going to a midnight screening of It's a Wonderful Life (both our favorite movie--to the point where we will rattle off lines from it to each other as a situation warranted--"you speak for yourself, Ms. B", "happy new year to you--in jail!", etc.).
When I turned 40, I met and fell in love with Lisa. We got married and as we did, Jack stood there as my best man.
Last week, I had a Yankee game with Jack. I went and sat in our seats. The game started and he wasn't there. I figured maybe he was delayed. But then the second inning came and went, and then the third. I knew by then that something was catastrophically wrong. In the 12+ years we've been going to games, he rarely missed one, and when he did he'd be sure to tell me weeks in advance so I could arrange a "replacement pal". By the fifth inning I was started to freak out. I texted him, and then emailed him, and then called his cell, and then called his landline. Nothing.
I went home early, no longer really caring about the game. I tried desperately to find his sister or his parents on social media. Finally, I managed to find his sister on LinkedIn. She told me what happened. Two weeks earlier, Jack had been checked into the hospital with sepsis, a life threatening condition where the whole body becomes infected with bacteria and tries to fight it off. Worse, there had been multiple surgeries and complications. Jack was still in the ICU.
I fell into shock. It was just a few weeks earlier that we'd been at a game. He was tired, but he was still joking and laughing with me. I asked if I could visit, and she said yes.
When I got to the hospital, Jack was sedated. His sister had described his condition to me in email, but I wasn't expecting what I saw. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say he was not in great shape. But for a brief moment he woke up and recognized me. He tried to communicate but wasn't able to; he was still so weak from his surgeries and had just come off intubation. I cracked a little joke about what was playing on the TV and he chuckled a little bit, which helped me realize that beneath the suffering he was going through physically, down deep "our Jack" was still there.
But he's not out of the woods yet.
And so if you're reading this, I ask if you can please pray. I know Jack is a stranger to you, but he's my best friend. And he needs a miracle.
In the TJC, we often feel that things like prayer requests should be reserved for church members. But as I think about it, that's not the way it should be. When Jesus Christ was on the earth, he extended his love and compassion to those beyond his followers. When Jesus healed the centurion's son, He did so based on the Centurion's faith, not contingent on whether the son would believe in him. When He healed the paralyzed man, he did so because of the faith of the four who lowered him through the roof.
In the last few days, something else has struck me. We often think that leading someone to Christ means preaching to them about the 10 Basic Beliefs and dragging them to church service. If they stay in church, then they're saved. If they don't, they've rejected the faith.
In the 35 years I've known Jack, I think in high school I mentioned my faith to him a few times. But I'm going to be honest. I could never bring him to church. Why? Because of all the things I mentioned in the first post of this blog. The sermons in church were long-winded lectures that didn't inspire me, and thus I felt they couldn't inspire someone else. Even if he seemed interested, I didn't think he'd be comfortable in a church where 99% of the members are Chinese and 60% of them spoke Chinese. And the church culture had become one where no one seemed to see any of these things as a problem--as long as they kept the same routine up week after week, year after year, they were doing God's business--and anyone who felt that change was needed was just plain faithless.
I imagine that certain people are getting upset as I write this. And to these people I only have two questions for you. First, do YOU have friends or co-workers who are not in the church. And second, if so, why haven't you brought them? Or if you have, why haven't they stayed? Are they really faithless heathen?
I've been praying a bit these last few days, and I realized something. Our calling is not to drag people to church and force them to sit in a pulpit for two hours. Our calling is to be a reflection of Christ. That's how we bring people to Him. If they choose to be baptized in the True Jesus Church as a result, that's great. But if the church is such that they can't bring themselves to join it, at the very least they'll have come to know Christ through you. And who knows if that'll count for something.
And so the question is--are we living our lives among those who haven't accepted Christ in such a way that they will see our good deeds and glorify God?
To my extreme shame, I haven't. I haven't been a reflection of Christ to Jack. In certain situations, such as dealing with unpleasant people at the ballpark or on the train, he's actually been more "Christian" than I've been. And so in addition to my hope and prayer and Jack hangs on and makes it through so he can live a long live and make it through his suffering, there's a part of me that also wants to get a second chance of really being able to be a true reflection of Christ to him.
And so my challenge to you is--how do your friends see you? When they see the good you do--whether in the form of actual charitable deeds or just something as subtle as your attitude in your daily life--do they see Christ in you and as a consequence yearn to have what you have? Or do they just see another human going through life who calls themselves a Christian and having a form of godliness but denying the power that comes through being a true follower of Christ?
I hope it doesn't come to the point where your best friends, inside or outside of church, get to this point before you make this realization.
Thanks for reading, and again, please pray for my friend Jack.
God bless,
Steve
