Among Giants

Week 43, Monday

Marilyn Kirkpatrick

All these were approved through their faith.

Hebrews 11:39 (hcsb)

I recently sat in a hospital room with a dear friend and mentor as we waited for her husband’s imminent death. When I arrived, there was another couple there with her, one of many of her peers. Before the afternoon was over, there were about five couples in this room that were all close friends of one another, as well as this grieving wife. I looked around that room and realized that over the past twenty-five years each one of these couples had poured into my life personally and spiritually. I was sitting among some of the greatest disciple makers of our church.

Over the course of their lives, they had individually and collectively poured into hundreds of young lives, including mine and my husband’s. They were each teachers, directors, administrators, or group leaders who had served with young couples, and most of them are still serving in that capacity in one way or another. As I left, I thought about how I had sat among “giants” that day—godly, spiritual giants of faith. Most of them had celebrated or were near celebrating fifty years of marriage.

As I listened to them talk among themselves, to one another and even to me, they shared the many storms they had weathered together, raising children, praying for one another through minor and major illnesses, the loss of parents, the celebrations of graduations and marriages of their children, and even their grandchildren. Their lives have not been easy, as some have had children walk away from the Lord, some have had children go through divorces, some have lost children and lost grandchildren, some have walked through very dark and difficult times in their own marriages, and yet they have demonstrated the sufficiency of God’s grace in their lives through it all.

I thought about the entire disciple-making process and while there are many formulas and books written for us to follow in making disciples, I realized the people around me had done that through their everyday lives—investing in people, teaching them by their examples and their failures, loving them, showing them the way to live for Christ and honor Him, and truly live out the Bible in their everyday lives before me and others.

Hebrews 11 lists those who were spiritual giants in their day and they were left to us as an example (see 1 Corinthians 10:6). Who are your spiritual giants?

Father, thank You for the tremendous impact that giants of the faith have had in my life and for allowing me to sit among them for this time! Amen.