FOOTPRINTS OF FAITH
FOOTPRINTS OF FAITH Matt Proctor
DAVID LIVINGSTONE was the 19th-century Scottish missionary, doctor, and explorer who helped open central Africa to missions.
Editor’s Note: In this new feature, “Footprints of Faith,” each future column will tell the story of a hero from church history, but this first column asks the question, “Why study our Christian ancestors?” For our 30th anniversary, my wife Katie and I dug our wedding videotape out of the basement, gathered our kids, popped popcorn, and made it a family movie night. They all laughed at how skinny and not-bald I once was. In the video, you can see I was young—twenty-one years old. I was immature, clueless about women (still am), and had no idea how to love my wife as Christ loved the church. Katie can tell you: our first year of marriage was hard. Though love is blind, marriage is an eye-opener, and Katie and I quickly discovered each other’s flaws. Tension, conflict, discouragement—it was rough going. As I watched, I thought, “How in the world did we ever make it?” In the video, you can see Katie’s Grandpa and Grandma Bunton. We were married on their 65th wedding anniversary, so we had two cakes at the reception, one for us and one for them. You can see my grandparents, married 63 years. You can see Katie’s parents and my parents, smiling and visiting—both married over 50 years. That’s how we made it: a heritage of faithfulness. All those couples experienced hard times, but they all rolled up their sleeves and worked through to the other side. So when things
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TO INFORM
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Hebrews 12:1 2 Timothy 1:3, 5-6
got hard for Katie and me, we knew we could do no less. We were now the next chapter in our family’s story, so we rolled up our sleeves. We had footprints to follow.
The Life-Shaping Power of Heritage
We’ve tried to pass on that heritage. My artist wife painted on our home’s entryway wall a large tree. On the branches hang pictures of our children (and now grandchildren); on the roots hang pictures of grandparents, great-grandparents, and greatgreat grandparents. Over the years, we’ve told our kids the stories of their forebears: • “That’s Great-grandpa Weede. He was a sheep-raising, pickup-truck-driving Iowa farmer. (Yes, a farmer named Weede.) A church elder for forty years, he’d sit in his recliner every night studying his Bible and writing his Sunday School lesson out on notebook paper.” • “There’s your Granny Ruth. Former schoolteacher, strong personality, and the heart of the big Bunton farming clan. (For twenty years, in the ‘occupation’ blank on her tax forms, she wrote ‘matriarch.’) You’ve never met a more servant-hearted lady. She taught the special needs adult Sunday School class until she was 85.” • “That picture is your Mom in high school. Did you know? On the evening she was crowned homecoming queen, she visited a nursing home in her formal dress—just to brighten the widows’ night. When Katie swished in, they ‘oooh’-ed and ‘aaah’-ed, and she stopped to talk with each one.” Those stories shaped my kids’ souls. So when my daughter Lydia—nominated for homecoming queen like her mama— went Valentine’s Day caroling to the homes of older widows (with a rose for each), I was not surprised. When my daughter Clara became a special needs teacher like her Granny, I was not surprised. And when my sheep-raising, pickup-truck-driving son Carl stood up in church and unfolded a handwritten Bible lesson on notebook paper like his Great-grandpa Weede, I was not surprised. Our kids knew: they had footprints to follow.
“A Great Cloud of Witnesses”
The Bible affirms the life-shaping power of heritage. When the first-century Jewish believers felt like giving up, the writer of Hebrews painted a big family tree on the wall and then pointed at the pictures—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab—and told stories of resilient faith. His conclusion? “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”1 Paul wrote, “I serve God as my forefathers did.” Timothy was to “fan [his] flame” by remembering the faith of his mother and grandmother, and when we listen to those who’ve gone before us, we discover Psalm 145:4 is true, “One generation shall praise your works to another.”2
