There is a great heritage of godly lives passed down to us in the family of faith. Believers have lived in all times past, facing the challenges of the days at hand. From the time of Nero to the Middle Ages to the Reformation to the World Wars to today, God has always had his remnant, a people who have lived for Him and placed His glory above their own comforts. As Paul himself said, “Follow me as I also follow Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1), so we can look to and follow these believers who have kept the faith and surrendered all for what is unseen and eternal.
Perhaps this is why I enjoy biographies of believers. These stories serve as real-life examples of men and women, as human as you and me with fears and dreams and sin struggles, who relied on God and lived all out for Him. They lived Paul’s words in Philippians 3: They were willing to give up all in their lives to live for Christ and to know Him in both His power and His sufferings. Despite all challenges, they pressed on toward the upward call of God on which their eyes were fixed (Phil. 3:8-14). Paul encourages us to observe those who walk in this way so we can follow their examples (15-17). And one way to observe their lives is to read their stories.
I am currently reading The Little Woman, an autobiography about Gladys Aylward. I am only about half-way through, but already I have been challenged by what she went through simply to get to China in the first place: the long time she had to work to buy the train ticket across Europe, the distance she had to walk in Siberia in the cold because war was raging where her train had stopped, the days that she was held prisoner by the Japanese government before she was able to escape them, and finally arriving in China in very primitive conditions and the missionary lady she was going to help dying about a year after she arrived. Yet she never turned around; she never gave up. She tells of a time on this journey when she cried out to God, “Oh God, is it worth it?” She writes, “Like a flash came the answer: ‘Be not afraid, remember I am the Lord.’ “ My challenges seem so small compared to someone who went through so much, but her example serves to help me put my own challenges in perspective, to be reminded that God is faithful to His children, and to press on in what God has called me to do in the place and time in which He has set me.
So for those of you who, like me, want to read more about the saints who have gone before us, here are some biographies that I have read and learned from. Perhaps you can respond to this post with biographies that have encouraged you in your faith.
A Passion for the Impossible (about Lillias Trotter, missionary to Algiers)
A Chance to Die (about Amy Carmichael, missionary to India)
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor during WW2)
Katharina von Bora (about Martin Luther’s wife)
Living Sacrifice (Helen Roseveare, missionary doctor to the Congo, part biographical, part devotional)
Susie (about Susanna Spurgeon, wife of Charles Spurgeon)
Marriage to a Difficult Man (about Jonathan and Sarah Edwards)
Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God (short biographies about five different women)
John Piper’s The Swans are Not Silent Series (each book in the series includes three biographies)
I am reminded of Steve Green’s song that holds true for these men and women and many more whose stories will never be told in books:
“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.”
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