Friends!

While visiting a Florida church, the pastor made a very insightful statement. He said, “The hardest thing for a pastor to do is ‘keep his balance.’” Often in the same day we are called on to weep and laugh, to spend and save, to decide and delay, to visit families of new born infants and attend funerals. To balance between illness and healing, to share with those in poverty and then hours later address the needs of those with plenty requires wisdom and maturity. As an aside, a very rich man once told me that the poverty of his youth was less troublesome than the riches in later life because he now struggled with who his true friends.

One of God’s greatest accomplishments, in my opinion, is the creation of friends, confidants who speak wisdom, counsel, balance into our lives. We tend to oversteer, overreact, overreach, or freeze in fear of making the wrong decision. Friends bring ballast! This week I will share how God brought friends into our lives, people who saved us from terrible errors, and added blessing.

When we moved to Lansing Michigan to pastor Calvary Assembly of God, the Lord brought Carl Graves into my life. Brother Graves was well respected throughout the Michigan District and beyond. I knew about him, saw him at events, but did not know how much one person could bless another. Shortly after moving to Lansing, Brother and Sister Graves attended a church service. He often played a coronet as the congregation sang and on occasion sang a special number, accompanying himself on an autoharp. The Grave’s presence always made services special.

It helps to know that the Graves Family is unique in 20th Century Pentecostal history. Carl’s father was Elder F. A. Graves, song writer and spiritual elder of Christ Assembly in Zion City, Illinois. You may learn more about the church and Graves Family at http://www.christianassemblyzion.org/SiteFiles/105903/Content/Images/History.pdf. Some of Elder Grave’s songs include “Honey in the rock,” and “He was nailed to the cross for me.” Arthur Graves, Carl’s brother, was a long tenured professor at what is now Southeastern University. A sister, Mildred, married an early Pentecostal scholar, Myer Pearlman, after whom Central Bible College’s library is named. Before pastoring in Michigan, Carl and his wife Bertha served in what now is Sri Lanka.

Carl Graves carried his family’s history and their life experience into our friendship. Forty years my senior, Brother Graves shared anecdotes, insights into Scripture, and a full bodied sense of humor into conversations. On an occasion when I was troubled by an action and decision of someone I loved, I asked Brother Graves, “How can we read the same Bible and come to diametrically opposite conclusions?”

“Well brother, have you ever stopped at a stop sign, looked both ways and then started out?” he asked.

“Sure,” I answered, “Even while on my way to your home today.”

“Have you ever, after starting out, heard a horn blow, tires screeching against pavement, and realized you were about to cause a collision?”

“Yes, that has happened!”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I didn’t see the other vehicle!”

To my reply, Brother Graves shared a most valuable life lesson, saying, “Brother, we all have blind spots, even you and me!” That lesson is still part of a personal encyclopedia of wisdom the Holy Spirit has written on the tablets of my heart. My friend enriched my life with that lesson in 1978, and the lesson continues to serve me well.

Thank God for friends!