Dear Friend, Im writing to say thanks. I wish I could thank you personally, but I dont know where you are. I wish I could call you, but I dont know your name. If I knew your appearance, Id look for you, but your face is fuzzy in my memory. But Ill never forget what you did. There you were, leaning against your pickup in the West Texas oil field. An engineer of some sort. A supervisor on the job. Your khakis and clean shirt set you apart from us roustabouts. In the oil field pecking order, we were at the bottom. You were the boss. We were the workers. You read the blueprints. We dug the ditches. You inspected the pipe. We laid it. You ate with the bosses in the shed. We ate with each other in the shade. Except that day. I remember wondering why you did it. We werent much to look at. What wasnt sweaty was oily. Faces burnt from the sun; skin black from the grease. Didnt bother me, though. I was there only for the summer. A high-school boy earning good money laying pipe. We werent much to listen to, either. Our language was sandpaper coarse. After lunch, wed light the cigarettes and begin the jokes. Someone always had a deck of cards with lacy-clad girls on the back. For thirty minutes in the heat of the day, the oil patch became Las Vegas—replete with foul language, dirty stories, blackjack, and barstools that doubled as lunch pails. In the middle of such a game, you approached us. I thought you had a job for us that couldnt wait another few minutes. Like the others, I groaned when I saw you coming. You were nervous. You shifted your weight from one leg to the other as you began to speak. Uh, fellows, you started. We turned and looked up at you. I, uh, I just wanted, uh, to invite ... You were way out of your comfort zone. I had no idea what you might be about to say, but I knew that it had nothing to do with work. I just wanted to tell you that, uh, our church is having a service tonight and, uh ... What? I couldnt believe it. Hes talking church? Out here? With us? I wanted to invite any of you to come along. Silence. Screaming silence. Several guys stared at the dirt. A few shot glances at the others. Snickers rose just inches from the surface. Well, thats it. Uh, if any of you want to go ... uh, let me know. After you turned and left, we turned and laughed. We called you reverend, preacher, and the pope. We poked fun at each other, daring one another to go. You became the butt of the days jokes. Im sure you knew that. Im sure you went back to your truck knowing the only good youd done was to make a good fool out of yourself. If thats what you thought, then you were wrong. Thats the reason for this letter. Some five years later, a college sophomore was struggling with a decision. He had drifted from the faith given to him by his parents. He wanted to come back. He wanted to come home. But the price was high. His friends might laugh. His habits would have to change. His reputation would have to be overcome. Could he do it? Did he have the courage? Thats when I thought of you. As I sat in my dorm room late one night, looking for the guts to do what I knew was right, I thought of you. I thought of how your love for God had been greater than your love for your reputation. I thought of how your obedience had been greater than your common sense. I remembered how you had cared more about making disciples than about making a good first impression. And when I thought of you, your memory became my motivation. So I came home. Ive told your story dozens of times to thousands of people. Each time the reaction is the same: The audience becomes a sea of smiles, and heads bob in understanding. Some smile because they think of the clean-shirted engineers in their lives. They remember the neighbor who brought the cake, the aunt who wrote the letter, the teacher who listened ... Others smile because they have done what you did. And they, too, wonder if their lunchtime loyalty was worth the effort. You wondered that. What you did that day wasnt much. And Im sure you walked away that day thinking that your efforts had been wasted. They werent. So Im writing to say thanks. Thanks for the example. Thanks for the courage. Thanks for giving your lunch to God. He did something with it; it became the Bread of Life for me. Gratefully, Max Max Lucado maxlucado From In the Eye of the Storm Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 1997) Max Lucado Be encouraged to share GODs love.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 18:44:42 +0000