Stories about Faithfulness

My husband as a child heard the children's story The Steadfast Tin Soldier and loved the romanticism and beauty of the tale. It is a story about faithfulness. A child receives the gift of tin soldiers. One of the soldiers has only one leg. The story includes a paper ballerina who the tin soldier fell in love with, and she with him.

They were quite different and yet the same in several ways. He was tin and she was fragile paper. But they both stood on only one leg. They were both faithful. She waited while he took an accidental journey through the gutters and canals of the city. No one knew for sure whether it was just the wind or the red goblin who "blew the tin soldier off the sill" and into the street.

Eventually the tin soldier made his way back home via a fish. But the red goblin was still at work and he caused the little boy to throw the tin soldier into the fire where he melted into a heart shaped lump, and the ballerina was blown into the fire with nothing left behind but a blackened sequin. Strange that children love this story?

But is it so strange. Why shouldn't children love a story about faithfulness, bravery and love. And perhaps they can love such a story because the truest truth is about a greater love, a love that is given by the triune God in the person of his Son Jesus Christ.

The Christian is loved by God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit and our Lord has promised to be with us. This is no romantic love as portrayed by a tin soldier and a paper doll. This is the love of a God who was willing to take on human flesh and die on the cross for sinful humanity. This is a love expressed by the shedding of blood.

And our story calls for faithfulness also and sometimes bravery.

There is an old song that is often sung in revivalist churches, (and perhaps others as well,) "God Leads Us Along." The chorus goes:

Some thro' the waters,

some thro' the flood,

Some thro' the fire, but all thro' the blood;

Some thro' great sorrow,

But God gives a song,

In the night season and all the day long."

Notice, not every one's story in that song is the same. We are all called to Jesus Christ. He has chosen us. But we are not all called on the same mission field or to the same Church or even to the same battles. Rev. Dr.Thomas Taylor, Deputy Executive Director for Mission, gave the sermon at my church, Fremont Presbyterian Church, this Sunday morning. He told a beautiful story also.

He told of a young woman who originally went to First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City Utah. He told us how she moved to New York City to work and got into all kinds of trouble including drugs. She found herself alone in a scary neighborhood in the middle of the night and without money. A cab driver offered to take her home and right in the middle of the ride, right before she passed out from the narcotics and liquor in her system she voiced her complaint; she was scared that the driver might do her harm.

She woke up the next morning in bed in her clothes. In her pocket was a note with the words "Try Christ." She did come to Christ and went home and continues to serve Jesus Christ. One of the thoughts I had about this story was---

The taxi driver was faithful and maybe that taxi driver was a Presbyterian or a Lutheran, maybe a Baptist--who knows. Maybe,-- maybe it was someone who belongs to the New Wineskins or even perhaps it was someone who is in the renewal movement in the Presbyterian Church USA (in New York City no less), and is staying because God has called them to faithfulness there. But they were faithful, and it is the Lord who sees that faithfulness.

One of the verses of the song goes:

"Tho' sorrows befall us, and Satan oppose, God leads his dear children along; Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads his dear children along."

So although our stories are different and some may be through the fire, with burnished tin and ashes, still they all end in the Father's house, on bended knee before the Lord Jesus Christ and they are all faithful stories because they are about the redeemed who are in union with the King of the universe.

Song by G.A. Young.: Cyber-Hymnal tells this story about the author of the song.

"Young was an ob­scure 19th Cen­tu­ry preach­er and car­pen­ter who spent a life­time hum­bly serv­ing the Lord in small rur­al com­mun­i­ties. Of­ten his fi­nan­cial sup­port was small, and it was hard on his fam­i­ly. But through all the ups and downs his faith­ful wife nev­er wav­ered in her loy­al­ty to God and to her hus­band. Af­ter a long strug­gle, the fam­i­ly was able to move in­to their own small home (which George built him­self). But then, on an oc­ca­sion when George was away preach­ing, some lo­cal thugs—who didn’t like his Gos­pel preaching—set fire to the house, and it was to­tal­ly de­stroyed. It was out of that ex­per­i­ence that Young re­af­firmed his faith in God by writ­ing God Leads Us Along."