It's a Small World

Did that title make you start singing?  It's a small world after all......

No, I haven't been over to Disney World, even though it's just a couple of miles away.  I did take a stroll through Downtown Disney a couple of days ago.  But this post is not about Mickey Mouse or all things Disney.

It really is a small world.  Earlier this week I learned that a friend of our family for many, many years - since before I was even born - had passed away.  As I was reading his obituary, I recognized the name of one of his grandsons.  The young man whose name I recognized is a part of the ministry team in our church.  We had met him on our trip to Israel in 2012, and we were, and are, very impressed with him.  I wondered if it could possibly be the same person named in the obituary.

So, I got in touch with this young man and just asked him.  Is Thomas Raines your grandfather?  And he said yes!  I had no idea that this young man was related to a man who had meant so much to my family.  What a small world!

Thinking about Mr. Raines, and about his wife who passed away a number of years ago, has taken me down memory lane.  To the Youth Department at First Baptist Landrum, where he was the department director during my youth, and to the Children's Department where Mrs. Raines and my mother spent so many years teaching children.

And as I have been traveling down memory lane, I have been remembering so many godly men and women who are a part of my past. My parents.  My grandmother.  Men and women who taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School and Training Union and Sunbeams.  (I'm dating myself when I mention Training Union and Sunbeams!!) Who were there during my childhood and my teenage years.  Who set an example.  Who lived lives of faithfulness.

Those men and women lived out the truths expressed so well in a song sung by Steve Green, and others, some years ago.



Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
May the fire of our devotion light their way
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful.
(lyrics by Jon Mohr)

Certainly those men and women of my childhood have been found faithful. They lived lives of influence.  They left quite a legacy.

The challenge for those of us whom they influenced, the challenge for you and me, for our generation and the generations to come, is to do the same.  To be found faithful.  To leave footprints that lead others to believe.  To light the way for others.

May we be found as faithful in our task as those men and women of my childhood, and perhaps of yours as well.  May we honor our Lord.  May we live lives that point others to Jesus.  May all who come behind us find us faithful.

"O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.  So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come."  (Psalm 71:17-18 ESV)