Friends in High Places

Mike Pupin landed in America with five cents in his pocket. The immigration officials took one look at him, shook their heads, and told him to go back to Serbia. But Mike didn't want to go. They admired his spunk and asked him if he had any friends in America who might speak for him.

Oh, yes, Mike's eyes lighted up. He had good friends. Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe! They let him stay, and Mike made good. He took a job driving a mule in Delaware. He studied English. He took odd jobs in New York City. He would follow a wagon load of coal and when the driver dumped it Mike would knock at the door of the house to get the job of shoveling it into the cellar.

Five years after he landed in America he entered Columbia University. Fifteen years after he had persuaded the officials to let him stay he was a professor of electrical engineering there. He became a famous scientist.

Now, of course, Mike did not really know the people he said were his friends. But he was wise enough to select people who would have helped him if they could. He admired them so much he was sure they were his friends. At least they helped him at the time.

Do you ever use Christ's name as a reference? And what better reference is there and who would go to bat more quickly for us than he would? Who is any more famous or who has done any more for the world than Jesus of Nazareth? Let's use his name when we are boasting of having friends in high places. He is our friend, so let's claim him as one.

I am glad to claim you as my friend, O Christ.