Thirteen Lessons, Lesson #3: It is important to know and to love those in family bloodlines and in
spiritual bloodlines
On a wild coast of the North Sea Scottish Islands stands a
sea wall covered in orange lichen. Atop
this sea wall is a stone fence, with pillars at the gates that mark its date:
1732. The parish church has crumbled
into just a few stacks of stones, but surrounding it are gravestones of
generations of maybe a dozen families that worshipped there, walking down
between the fields each Lord’s Day morning faithfully to come before their Lord
and offer praise. Over the hill and
across golden fields lies the manse, just as it has for 250 years. Our childrens’ great-great-great grandparents
farmed those fields, walked that path to church. We spent a couple of hours carving grey
lichens off names to discover as many family gravestones as we could, dating
back to 1820. The ones lying beneath the
sod, weathered by many a winter and now covered from human eyes, we knew not
where they spoke of aunts, uncles, parents back further still.
We had seen a lot of amazing sights across the miles of
Scottish moors and mountains, towns and ravishing cities. But these moments were precious to our
children. Here, their familial bloodlines
lifted voices in psalm and song. Here,
the names they bear tilled the land and perhaps laid these endless stone
fences. There, the dovecot built in the
1600’s was seen daily by eyes that had not yet known the begotten that would be
our heritage, now known only through sepia photos from ages past. It was a priceless moment, one of their
favorite; moving, quiet, firmly planting them in the lines of their forefathers
who had kept the faith, who had loved the same Christ, who had sung some of the
same psalms they know, who had lived, loved, died.
We have other bloodlines, spiritual ones. Intimately acquainting our children with them
has been an immense blessing. Teaching
them to love these people, many who have given all their lives for the gospel,
for their Christ, has brought alive whole new worlds for them. Not only has it opened up the close realities
of those living across the world as brothers and sisters in Christ, but it has
opened up the precious witness of their words and actions as mentors, teachers,
friends, to them. Hudson Taylor,
Elisabeth Elliott, Don Richardson, Cameron Townsend, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Nate
Saint, Darlene Deibler-Rose, Amy Carmichael, the list goes on and on and we
could reach a hundred just with a little trip downstairs to the library. These each have become beloved friends, fellow
heirs of the richness of our inheritance in Christ. Their words and their actions have discipled
us and our children over many years. We
know them now in part. One day we will
talk with them. Of course, I’ve not
forgotten that foremost are the flesh and blood realities of the saints of
Scripture who walked this earth with hopes and joys and sorrows such as
we. A continuum of the river of saints
are as much the acquaintances of our children’s childhood as their own aunts
and uncles, more enduring and more powerful than many friendships.
I am reading Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, and a conversation
in it reminded me of how distracted we can be in our modern culture toward the
famous who have nothing to offer us, or how focused we can be toward uncovering
the vast riches still being uncovered by those famous in their faith (add
Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Boston, John Owen, and a few dozen
other Puritans who deeply understood the human soul). The conversation is between Li Quan, a Chinese
Christian and Ben, a careless American businessman, college roommates at
Harvard 20 years prior:
“Some say there are five to ten thousand more new Christians
in China every day. There are more new
Christians than Bibles. No matter how
many Bibles come in, it is never enough.”
“I probably have three on my bookshelf at home,” Ben
said. What he didn’t say was he couldn’t
remember the last time he’d read any of them.
“Chinese proverb: ‘Distant water no help to put out fire
close at hand.’ There are those who
would gladly go without food for weeks in exchange for the spiritual food
sitting on your shelf. In a country of
more than a billion, even ten million Bibles would only be a drop in the
bucket.”
“It would take a lot of money to provide that many Bibles.”
“Hudson Taylor said: God’s work done in God’s way never
lacks God’s supply.”
“Who’s Hudson Taylor?”
You never heard of Hudson Taylor?” Quan looked dismayed.
“Was he one of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands?”
“Who is Elisabeth Taylor?”
“You’ve never heard of Elizabeth Taylor?”
“Hudson Taylor was the founder of China Inland Mission. He led to Yesu my great-grandfather Manchu
when he was a boy. Hudson Taylor
performed eye surgery on him. Did you
know that on some days he did two hundred eye surgeries? I suppose you did not know, since you have
never heard of him. But I am also
ignorant—I do not know this Elizabeth Taylor.
Was she also a great missionary?”
“Not exactly.”
“Manchu lived in Hangzhou, first Headquarters for China
Inland Mission.”
“Hangzhou? Is that
why you say you’re from Hangzhou, even though you’ve never been there?”
“Where our ancestors are from, we are from. Li Quan’s life did not begin with Li Quan.”
“But it didn’t begin with your great-grandfather, either.”
“We choose someone in our family history who sets a
direction for the family line. Li Manchu
was the first Li to follow Yesu. That is
why I am from Hangzhou, and so is [my son].”
“He’s never been there either, right?”
“No. Why is that
important?”
Ben laughed. “It just
seems strange.”
“To me, America is strange.
Each person acts as if his life begins and ends with himself.”
“I can’t tell you where my great-grandfather lived,”, Ben
said, “or what he did, or even what his name was.”
Ben squirmed at what he saw in Quan’s eyes – pity.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment