Rule 13 – An ordinary man can lead an extraordinary life and leave an extraordinary example.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “God must love common people; He made so many of them.” When you think about it, those are the people that shape your life. It’s not the war hero with a bronze statue on the city square or the dead president whose portrait hangs on the wall of your local library. It’s not sports figure whose name is printed on the jersey you wear or the pop singer that recorded the song stuck in your head this morning on the drive into work. No, the people that made an impact on you, the individuals that shaped you into who you are, for good or bad, were most likely everyday common people.

They were probably your mothers, fathers, grandparents, older siblings or some old couple that lived across the street. Some seasoned employee that trained you on the first job you had out of high school; the grumpy but secretly kind custodian at your elementary school. The people that influenced you were more likely to be farmers, housewives, factory workers, or store clerks, than celebrities or some great personality of renown.

While I’m fond of throwing out quotes from famous people, I’m quick to admit that I learned a lot more from old guys that I grew up around like “Uncle Demps” Briley, Vernon Buntin, Donald George, Odie Johnson or George Martin than I ever did from Winston Churchill or Albert Einstein. Chances are, you’ve never heard of these everyday folks, but they all taught me some valuable lessons, and I will remember all of them for the rest of my life.

That’s the kind of guy that Bud Wilson was. He was just an everyday guy, making a living, trying to do right by his family, his friends, his God. While he was well known in his circle of friends, he wasn’t famous. As far as I know, he never set a record, unless it was for the longest conversation in the parking lot after church, and we never called Guinness to get verification.  

Was he perfect? Absolutely far from it. Some of the most valuable lessons Dad taught me involved how NOT to handle a given situation. But he showed me love, he showed me humor, grace, passion, honor, work ethic and a simple faith in God. If you have just a few of those coupled with that last one, you’ll get by pretty well in life. Dad did that for me; in fact, Dad did that for a lot of folks.

For me, he was my father. For others, he was a childhood friend that became a lifelong friend. For still others, he was the young man that helped old folks put out a garden or a crop and much later, the old man that imparted respect and wisdom into the lives of young people that needed trust and guidance. In all that, he was an ordinary man. He was a farmer and a factory worker that never finished the fourth grade and while he could look at a steer standing in a trailer and guess his weight, Dad could barely write his name. He was good at making money, but not particularly good at handling it; that was a task that fell to my mother. But he could secure a loan for a hundred acre farm with a smile and a handshake, because he had a reputation for being so solid and trustworthy.

The past twelve rules I have written about have been the culminated in this one. Because Dad lived by these rules, spoken or unspoken, he made an impact. Because he was a good friend and a good father and a man of faith, people still remember him, now ten years after he’s been gone. Because of his example, I’ve been changed; so have others.

James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” Because of Bud, because of Dad, I learned that you don’t have to be high and mighty to make a difference. If you’ll just be true to God and yourself, He will take you mighty high. Thanks Dad…I love you.   

Rule 12 – Friendship is one of the most precious things you can offer someone.

There is an old saying that goes something like this- “If you want to have a friend, you’ve got to be a friend.” If anyone ever exemplified that principle to me, it had to be my dad. Bud was the kind of guy that had friends everywhere. He was loved by many, because he loved many. I told my mother several times while he was living that when it came time for his funeral, we would have to get a pretty big place for the event. When Dad passed, mom mentioned my remark and said, “Don’t be too disappointed if there isn’t a big crowd. Bud was nearly eighty, and a lot of his friends are sick or have already passed away.”

Mom need not have worried though. I stood in a receiving line with my brothers for twelve hours straight, hearing stories about my dad, seeing people that had driven from all over to pay their respects. The exchanges were often pretty loud and irreverent, with plenty of jokes and laughter. But that was exactly as it should have been, because that’s exactly the way Bud lived. By the time the funeral visitation was over, nearly seven hundred people had signed the guest registry, and many more told me later that they came by, but simply couldn’t find a parking place or get in the door.

An old boss of mine once told me that the main thing that will determine how many folks show up at your funeral will be whether or not it rains. While I understand the sentiment, I also know that when a man has friends, they honor him in life and in death. They remember him after he’s gone with fond recollection, if he was a friend to them.

Friendship may be one of the biggest blessings we get in this life, and one of the most underrated. You can live in a million dollar home or under a bridge, but friendship makes life worth the living. Catching that ten pound catfish or making that hole in one doesn’t have the same joy when there’s nobody to share the experience. Likewise, a when tragedy strikes, there’s nothing as valuable as a friend to put their arm around you and share your tears. Dad was good at that, and I’m so glad he taught me how valuable friends are in life. We all have a friend in Jesus, if we will accept Him, but in this world, it helps to have a friend that “wears skin.”

One of the positive things that have come out of the social media craze is the ability to connect and reconnect with friends. As we middle aged folks have taken over Facebook, we have found people that we haven’t talked to or seen in a long time. While I’ll have to admit that it’s not always a positive experience, (sometimes you’d rather not know what kind of drama is going on in someone’s life) I also think it’s great that we can connect and reconnect with old friends. Even folks that we may not have been close to back in school have become our electronic penpals. (It’s amazing what a few decades of maturity and humility does for some folks, huh?)

While my children were growing up, we tried to help them foster friendships. That’s not always easy, because as children grow up, they often grow apart. But one of the things I always told my kids was this: Some of the best friends you’ll ever have, you haven’t met yet.

Let that one sink in for a moment…there are friends ahead of you that you haven’t met; people that will really mean something to you. How many are there? Well, my friend, that is all up to you. If you want to make a friend or two tomorrow, you have the opportunity. If you want to shut the world out, you can do that too. It is up to YOU.

I can hear someone say, “What if there is no tomorrow?” Well, that’s the best part. If you believe in Heaven and have made preparations for it, the opportunity for building friendships never has to end. You have an eternity to make new friends, and I’m pretty excited about that. When I get there, I know there will be lots of folks that will be very interesting to have as friends.

When it comes to the riches of this world, they say that you can’t take it with you. But friendship is different.  I’ve got several friends on the other side of eternity that I want to catch up with. They don’t have a Facebook account over there, so I’ll just have to make plans to catch up in person. Likewise, my friends and family over there are making more friends. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it; the circle is not only unbroken, it is ever expanding.  Somewhere over there, I have a father and a son that are making new friends. I can’t wait to be introduced.