My Best Friends Letter

By Rick Thomas

I received this letter from a close friend shortly after my visit to his home in 1993. He is with the Lord today. He contracted bone cancer shortly after the time of the letter and died three years later. At one time, he had a robust ministry, but later had an adulterous relationship with a member of his church. The body of Christ alienated him. He was my best friend. I love him dearly.

Rick,

It was so good of you to drop by. Visitors are few, you know. I had only stepped out for a minute and then right back. Well, to know you came to see me meant a lot.

I know people wonder whatever has become of me. I meet up with an old acquaintance from time to time. Some are curious and ask the most naked questions: “What are you doing now? Where are you working? Aren’t you going to preach anymore?” etc. And then others are kind, or quiet and they talk about the weather or their garden or my children. Then when the conversation has worked its way to the precipice, they retreat with, “Well, it’s good to see you pr…, uh, Brother. You take care.” Always in their eyes I see, “The Question.”

I don’t blame people for acting that way. They really don’t know what to do, and they struggle with the encounter as much as I do. I once saw an old preacher friend in Lowe’s one day. He had fallen and was out of service, just doing the best he could. I searched for something worth saying, but it just wasn’t there. So I dodged him. I should have remembered what I learned years ago about pastoral visits to the funeral home: don’t ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Just stand there with them, and weep with them. “Then said the Jews, ‘Behold how he loved him.’”

I stay quite to myself now, you know. I’m recluse, but not melancholy. I go to work, speak to every soul, but I don’t get close. I’ve declined invitations to work on driver’s safety committees. I don’t attend company functions. I don’t use a CB radio or stop where the other drivers have stopped to eat. I just do my job and come home. I don’t even go to family get-togethers. I stay busy working on woodcrafts. I’ve taken up golf and I read incessantly. But my reading, like my heart and mind, has taken a turn. I have done some secular reading, like Hemingway, Eudora Wetly, and Stephen Crane. But these people were Christless, and their Christlessness bleeds through like a stain under white paint. Apart from their literary skills, I didn’t get much out of it. So I’ve turned back to preachers who wrote around the turn of the century. Men like Andrew Blackwood, Leslie Weatherhead, S. B. Shaw, and, of course, my favorite, C. H. Spurgeon. I keep two books with me at all times. I still make notes and write outlines though I never use them.

My books, which stand on their shelves like ready soldiers, and my Bible, which sits open on my desk like a constant friend, are the links to the past when I was received and respected in most circles. I suppose memory is the handmaid of hope, and I refuse to give up hope.

I did say that my heart and mind have changed, and they have, in unforeseen ways. Little things make me cry. A. T. Robertson used to speak of ‘the dark night of the soul.’ And there are many kinds of night. When I was pastoring I confess I prepared for the preaching like a convict busting rocks. There was very little joy, only drudgery. Afterthought makes the muddiest water clear, and now I see more clearly. I could not look out over the congregation without being aggravated with all their shortcomings. It fogged up the house of God and I could not by vision see one hungry heart, and most tragically, I could not even see the yearning Savior searching for them. What an opportunity I had! Error in the mind of a preacher is like a fire in the hayloft.

I had three hours a week to extol Christ. People’s hearts are tenderized when they hear of a broken Savior and a loving Shepherd, not a list of do’s and don’ts from a novice who thinks he can bend cold steel without breaking it. “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” Every man carries an enemy inside of him, but the preacher has more to lose if he does not deal prudently and walk in wisdom.

Now I feel like I’m living in exile. But God knew of such things as this and when He made grace, He made it with broad borders so men like me can learn from our past without being overcome by it.

A fellow preacher asked me what I would change if I had it to do over again. This was my feeble but heartfelt answer:

Realize that a sign that God had truly called me was that He calls men to do the impossible. That is the most noticeable earmark of our work.
I would approach the Bible like a starving man approaching food.
I would understand that people are just that: people. We are all cut from the same block. God’s x-ray shows that beyond the outward garb we are all about the same.
No woman is worth giving up the ministry! No woman is worth all of this pain!
Finally, I would attach myself to the cross and make the rope so short I couldn’t get far from it. It would be my life and breath; my passion and cause. The cross would be my apology and defense. All my reasoning would come from there. It would be my point of departure and my feeling of home. There would be my reason for living, preaching, and dying.

Brother Rick, I’m waiting day after day. It’s like I know somehow that the God of happy endings is working even for me. And that any moment now something is going to happen…something very marvelous, and I’m going to experience a great release. Pray that it will be so.

I remain yours, very truly,