Someone recently asked:
"In my opinion, it is so hard to find role models these days. Personally, I look to my mom and dad for guidance. They are my role models. Also, I consider my friends my role models at times. However, I know that Jesus is the ultimate Role Model of every Christian. So I'm wondering, who is/are your role model/models and why?"
I answered:
"You know the GOOD thing about imperfect role-models?
They show you how to get up after you've fallen down.
I've had some great rolemodels in life, none of them perfect though. Grew up from 13 though, without a dad. He left. So that was a big gap. I suppose I've had to model myself a lot from Scripture, and from those ideals passed down to me through the Bible and through history. The Truth. It is a difficult and challenging role-model, yet the most rewarding.
I suppose I've also modeled myself after some of the great heroes of the church. Those of strong faith who overcame and whose lives and efforts inspire. James Hudson Taylor comes to mind. Also George Muller. CS Lewis. Charles Wesley, and even St. Benedict - plus others. They have been my teachers along with some you probably haven't heard of Lisl Von Schweinitz, Ian Brons, Jeff Jackson, Tony Haworth, George Golding. Ones who I grew up with in church, who held fast to the faith, and lived lives of servants - servants of God who poured out their lives to bless men.
May I not shame their efforts, as the baton come to me."
More and more it occurs to me that those of us go before, or who are now in front, cannot forget those who are just setting out, or just aren't as far on. We have not only our duty to finish our race, but to pass on what we gain that others may benefit.
A fruitful humanity is not simply a world populated with millions of babies. It is a world populated by healthy people, coming into wholeness, and fullness of life. They themselves then reproducing not only body, but also character, skills and strength - life.
In Genesis Adam and Eve were commanded to go forth, multiply and be fruitful. Yet is not being fruitful more than just a numbers game? Is it not also a quality and a maturity game? Farmers, who could not just get grain as and when they pleased, did not take all of their harvest and sell it or eat it. Some of it they would keep that they may take the seeds and from that harvest they would plant the next crop.
We cannot take the fruit which God grows in our lives, and teaches us to grow, and simply eat it or even use it to feed others. We have a duty also to make that fruit multiply and become fruitful itself - by passing life and wisdom down to others. The gifts God gives to us are not only to be used, but also to be reproduced - to be made truly fruitful.
Your church is not simply a greenhouse where you can bask in the Son and gain strength and light. It is a allotment over which God gives each of us some responsibility and care. We must not only look to ourselves, or what we ourselves can do to help others, but must look also to those themselves - just as Christ has taught. Serve others. Yet how are they best served. Yes by feeding them, and bandaging them, but also by teaching them to garden, and to bind themselves or others in turn. Take of what you have and share it. Not only what your hands carry, but what your hands have learned to do.
Can you cook? Did your grandmother pass down to you the recipes with which you feed and make satisfied your family. Are you grateful for that ability? I think perhaps Christ would ask you, are there girls who do not have mother or grandmother as you did? Girls who would love to have a family and be faithful mother or sister, yet they don't know what to do? Who would Christ say they are to you? Share with them. Teach them.
Can you plumb? Are you glad you are able to help others, and to fix your house without having to have to pay through the nose every time something goes wrong, or keep asking the same people for help when they are busy? Are there boys who will need to be fathers and sons. Boys whose father has left them? Who then is their father now? Who will teach them what you were taught?
Can you garden? Decorate? Budget? Do you know cars? Do you dislike the lack of a work ethic that you see around you? What are your gifts? What are your blessings and strengths?
You're not only responsible to work for people. You're responsible for passing on life. :)
Be fruitful. Multiply.
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