Those "Impossible" Cases
It is only by risking our person from one hour to the next that we live at all. — William James
I wasn't particularly fond of Don, and many fellow students didn't like him. He was anything but a scholar, and his teachers were unanimous in their speculation that he probably wouldn't amount to much.
Meanwhile, I had a problem. I was in charge of the public relations department at Taylor University in central Indiana, and I needed someone to help me type news releases and feature stories for the school paper, the Marion Chronicle, and other local papers.
Don, for all his inabilities in general, happened to be the fastest typist around. Although I did it against my better instincts, I gave him a job. What I didn't realize at the time was that he was also the most inaccurate typist on campus! When all was said and done, Don really didn't seem to have much going for him that would be helpful to us in the office. Still, there was a chemistry between us that I wouldn't fully understand until much later.
His typing didn't improve much in the weeks and months he worked for me, but he slowly began to make his mark in university athletics. He started breaking school baseball records one after another, and he still holds the crown for the
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highest consistent batting average for any four-year player. Most important of all, as a freshman he made a firm commitment to Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord.
To make a long story short, Don Odle remained at Taylor after his graduation to become the winningest basketball coach in the school's history, and at his retirement the fifth winningest coach in the United States. For thirty-five years he coached there and modeled discipline, courage, patience, and an inner peace that helped shape the lives of literally hundreds of young men.
He went on to become the founder of Venture for Victory, an international basketball team of Christians that has carried the good news of God's love to villages, cities, barrios, and prisons all over the world. In the process, literally hundreds of thousands of people have said yes to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Don later became an assistant to the president of Taylor University, and in that position he was able to touch other lives that have gone on to ministries that circle the globe.
Don Odle — the fast typist who couldn't spell. The poor student. The kid with little potential. For some reason, I had chosen to be his friend — and he had chosen to be mine. Over the years he has become one of the best friends I've ever had. He's not just my friend; he is a friend to the world! Our years together have taught me a powerful principle of friendship essential to building a lasting relationship:
| 1. We must decide to develop friendships in which we demand nothing in return. |
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Love, in order to work, must be unconditional. Just as God accepts us on an "as is" basis, so too must we enter into friendships based on taking the other person unconditionally into the relationship.
I think a lot about those early days with Don, and I try to remember to keep the same attitude toward all the "Dons" that come my way every day. As much as I like to believe I can spot a diamond in the rough, I still don't always manage to do it. Like the day I received a long distance telephone call.
I was busy and didn't want to be disturbed. I was told it was urgent so I reluctantly picked up the phone. A young man's voice said, "Dr. Engstrom, I have decided I would like to work with World Vision."
Since he had me on the line, I figured I might as well give him sixty seconds, and then I'd be through with him. I found it wasn't that easy. He wanted to see me personally. I said I was on my way to New York City. He said, "I'll meet you there."
We had dinner in New York. I didn't really respond to him warmly. He was young and brash. I told him he probably wouldn't fit in, but he would not take no for an answer!
I said, "Well, what do you like to do?"
He replied, "I like to solve problems."
With that he had my attention. I started to listen more carefully. Solve problems, eh? I admitted we certainly had problems.
He asked, "When do I start?
Now he had me. I told him I'd give him $1000 (for one month) to help us solve some problems. Do you know what? In the months and years that followed he not only solved one problem after another, but he also designed and put into motion
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the tremendously successful World Vision Love Loaf program that has already raised more than $15 million to feed hungry, destitute people throughout the world.
His name is Bobb (he even spells his first name funny) Biehl. Today, he is a dear, cherished friend.
It's true. Friendships often demand from us wild, even unreasonable risks. Sometimes they turn out to be the best, most exciting, most productive relationships of all. Try making a friend of someone you may not be overly impressed with at first. Who knows? He may set some records or help you raise $15 million. In the process, he or she may become a cherished friend. You'll never know unless you try.
The Acid Test of Friendship
Have you ever felt "ripped off" in a friendship, been conned into a relationship that never was really there in the first place? How do you tell a true friend from a pseudo-friend?
"It's not very difficult," says Eugene Kennedy, professor of psychology at Loyola University of Chicago. He continues:
The tests that have been applied to friendships throughout the ages apply very well today. If you find, for example, that there are people you can't be with unless you're doing something together — skiing, playing handball, going to a play; in other words, a third thing to which you both direct your attention — then that person may not be as good of a friend as you think.... The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moment that people look back on at the end of life
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and number as the most sacred experiences they've ever had."1
Think back in your life, and you'll probably agree the professor is right. The truly great moments of friendships have been when you were really doing nothing in particular with your friend, when you were making no demands whatsoever on the relationship. Yet, for some people, this "doing nothing" is a terrifying experience.
In a healthy, nurturing friendship, the risk of doing nothing is seldom a threat. For example, you arrive at a sundrenched meadow of wild flowers at eleven thousand feet after an all-morning mountain climb. The elevation has your heart pumping as it has never pumped before. You are so exhausted you literally have nothing to say. You are with your friend, and that is enough.
Or the phone rings at two in the morning. It is your friend telling you his teen-age son has just been involved in a terrible automobile accident. Through his tears he tells you his boy is not expected to live. With a lump rising in your throat, you race to the emergency room just to be there, not to say, or necessarily do anything. Just to be there with your friend. And just being there is enough. Haven't you known this feeling?
More and more this is how my wife, Dorothy, and I feel about our adult children. We experience a simple, quiet joy and relaxation in just being together.
How to Find Friends Tailor-made for No Demands
In many ways, finding a true friend is much like finding happiness or riches or great fame. Real joy — the kind that lives in the marrow of our bones — seldom comes to us when
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we spend all our time trying to achieve it. Instead, it's almost always a side benefit to being totally immersed in some fulfilling piece of work. In similar fashion, great wealth historically has not necessarily come to those who set their minds on riches alone. Fame, too, has often been no more than the by-product of the great dedication and work of an ordinary person who chose to do great things.
It's the same with friendship. More than anything else, it seems to be little more than a spin-off of who we are and what we feel and believe about ourselves. In fact, the most important element in building a friendship seems to be the ability to accept ourselves as we are and then to be that person so that others perceive us as genuine. I think we can discover in the process those friends who are tailor-made for us. Take this story for example.
In March of 1983, UPI released a story about a five-year-old leukemia victim. The emotion of the scenario tore at the heartstrings of the entire nation. It was all about a very special friendship, one that clearly illustrates principle number one in being a friend — that of not demanding anything in return.
About one month after his parents learned their son, "P.J." Dragan, had leukemia, the child began receiving a variety of get well messages. He received gifts, cleverly written letters, poems, and drawings. The presents all came from an unnamed party called "Magic Dragon." The special trademark of Magic Dragon's gifts was a big green bow.
As the weeks and months wore on, little P.J.'s treatments grew long and painful. But there was one consolation. Magic Dragon's surprises arrived at the house with clockwork
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regularity. P.J.'s favorite gift was a stuffed dragon — a friend that became more realistic to the boy as the disease progressed.
P.J.'s father was a Detroit policeman. At one point, he tried to track down Magic Dragon's hidden identity. However, he changed his mind when he discovered the trouble to which Magic Dragon had gone in order to cover his or her tracks.
When little P.J. went into the hospital, the prized toy dragon received the same treatment the boy did. When a bandage was put on P.J., the dragon got one too. That little stuffed toy with the big green bow pulled P.J. through some of the most difficult times of his illness.
Unfortunately, five-year-old P.J. lost his battle, and shortly after listening to his favorite record, "Puff the Magic Dragon," the brave little boy died. Hundreds of friends and relatives paid their final respects to P.J. and contributed to the vast array of flowers that occupied most of the room where his little body lay. As you would have expected, in the middle of the display was a gigantic bouquet of daisies tied affectionately together with a big green bow.2
"Magic Dragon," if you're reading this book, I want to say thank you from all of us whose lives are a lot different because of what you did. You made no demands on P.J., and you chose anonymity to do what you were moved to do.
But more than that you have shown us all that finding a tailor-made friend is basically little more than finding people in need and then helping them all we can. You didn't mind risking it with P.J. I hope he won't either. Thank you, Magic Dragon.
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But I've Been Hurt Before ...
How many times have you heard someone say that? I loved once, and it didn't work out, so I'll never love again. I was once his friend, but he turned on me. I'll never trust again.
It reminds me of the line from the great American literary figure, H.L. Mencken, who said, "There's always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." Nothing would be more unfortunate than to act like the proverbial cat who sat on a hot stove and vowed never to sit on any stove again. Yet it happens all the time. Every day, hurt and disappointment keep hundreds of thousands of people from enjoying the fantastic rewards that come from friendships.
What can we do? Perhaps the language of motivation literature may move us along. We have phrases like, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going," or in Robert Schuller's words, "Tough times never last, but tough people do," "profit from your problems," and "harness your handicaps."
You might respond that life is hard and you have been hurt often. That may be true, but that is true for all of us. When a friend has hurt or disappointed us, it's often difficult for us to bounce back. That's when Henry Ford's encouraging words can help us. The famous car maker once said: "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." Perhaps we were somewhat naive in the friendship, or we didn't really know what was expected of us. Maybe we expected more of our friend than he or she was able to give. These are all realistic possibilities.
Will you take some risks to receive the rewards of friendship
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by setting some enormous goals for yourself, or will you settle for less than the best? Let's face it, just about everything seems impossible at first. Even that greatest salesman of them all, J.C. Penney admitted that when he said, "The hardest thing of all is just getting started! The first sale is always the hardest."
If you will begin, if you will consider going out on a limb in a friendship with no demands on your friend, you will discover a treasure no amount of money could buy. But it will seldom come easy.
In fact, the greatest lie of all is that friendship will come automatically to us free and clear, without our risking anything or doing something to pursue it. The song says, "It Ain't Necessarily So." Better than that, it's not so at all!
A healthy, nurturing friendship demands work. True friendship is never a one-way street. If it is, it won't be one for long. Instead, friendship is a dynamic, ever-moving force that involves the commitment, energy, discipline, and caring of two people. The Scriptures ask us, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" (Amos 3:3). The implied answer is, "Of course not!" Two people must speak the same language to communicate, and friends must determine to speak the language of friendship.
A good friend doesn't say, "Take care of me. Pay me my due." A person who seeks a meaningful friendship doesn't exploit a friend. In friendship there is a yielding to the other, with the full knowledge the golden rule is as applicable today as the day it was first given to the children of Israel: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
In the process, we need to remember that a friendship is not a right; it is a privilege. Friendships will survive only if we give them the careful attention and nurture they must
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have. Long-term happy relationships indicate a person has a strong sense of self-worth and the capacity to give himself or herself without fear of being depleted.
Will you often need to go out on a limb? Yes, your friendships may involve tremendous risks — risks of giving and not necessarily receiving or of putting yourself on the line without being assured a payoff.
There are no thirty-day or thirty-year guarantees with friendship. As you stretch your caring, and as before God you expand your compassion, you will discover the truth of the words of the nineteenth-century author George Eliot who wrote that friendship is the "inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words."
I've put the principles of demanding nothing in return first on my list for a reason. Maybe you've tried too hard to be friends with people who for some reason had no need for your friendship. This time, try for a friend that nobody else may want.
Are you ready, willing, and able to take the plunge into what may be the most wonderful experience of your life? Are you ready to reach out to that someone and begin a relationship with no strings attached? Perhaps there is a "P.J. Dragon" ready to receive the love only you can give. All it takes to get started is open eyes, an open heart, and the open willingness to be a friend.
