About a month ago, I was roaming through Barnes & Noble looking for a great study book. I came by a book written by Max Lucado and knew it was exactly what I was looking for. Thankfully, it was on clearance as well! Woo for bargains!
I was about to go to sleep one night and I had a hankerin' for a good story. So, I opened my book and began to read about Paul. Little did I know that I would be sobbing by the end of this story. Let me share a little with you....
Chapter three, pg. 27. changed my perspective on a few things. The title of this article is called, "Hidden Heroes".
It speaks of Paul in Romans and how he gave all he had to the Lord. Paul shaped history. Paul would die in the jail of a despot. No headlines announced his execution and no observer recorded the events. To the society, Paul was a peculiar purveyor of an odd faith. (Lucado) Doesn't look like a hero, doesn't sound like one either. He never recieved a salary. He had to pay his own travel expenses. Kept a part-time job to make ends meet. He introduced himself, while writing Romans, as the worst sinner in history. He asked who would save him from this body, which brough him death? ( Rom. 7:24). Only heaven knows how long he stared at the question before he found the logic to write "I thank God for saving me through Christ Jesus our Lord!" ( Romans 7:24)..
Bystanders would not believe the things that Pauld did for the Lord. No one gave him any credit because they saw him as a murderer. Paul's name would blow like the dust his bones would become. He was a hidden heroe. He was noble, but passing. Courageous, but small. Radical yet unnocticed. No one bade farewell to him thinking that his name would be remembered more than a generation.
A hero could be next door and you wouldn't even know it.
Tomorrows Spurgeon might be mowing your lan. And the hero who enspires him might be nearer than you think. He might be in your mirror.
(MAX LUCADO)
1. In what way do heroes seldom look like heroes? Heroes are not boastful. They do not walk around with their heads hung high. They keep to themselves and continue to do what they do from the love of their heart. Not from their own egos.
2. What's your picture of a hero? One who lays down himself including his image and his pride to impact another persons life. big or small.
My prayer is to rejoice in sorrow. Be rich in the Lord through rejoicing in his promises and know that I possess everything even when I have nothing. (2 Corinthians 6: 10)
...just as Paul did.
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