A ROCKY FOUNDATION

  Brother Andrew continues his story “  I walked back to the mission school from the slums below. As I turned through the gate at the school, above me was the reminder “Have Faith in God”. The school was asleep and quiet. I tiptoed upstairs and sat at the bedroom window looking out over Glasgow. If I was going to give my life as a servant of the king I had to know that king. What was he like? In what ways could I trust him? Sitting there that September night, I knew that my probing into God’s nature was going to begin with the issue of money. That night I knelt in front of the window and made a covenant with him.   “Lord” I said “I need to know if I can trust you in practical things. I thank you for helping me to earn the fee for the first semester, supply for the rest of them. If I be so much as a day late in paying, I shall know that I am supposed to go back to the chocolate factory. God honored my prayer; but not without first testing me in some amusing things. The weeks passe

  The poet Henry W. Longfellow was on in years and his hair was white, but he remained a vigorous man. When someone asked him the secret of his vitality, Longfellow pointed to an apple tree in bloom and said, "That tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms on it than it now bears. That tree grows new wood each year. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood each year.'' That is God's design for his children. As a healthy tree adds a new ring of growth each year, we too should constantly “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Although the years take their toll on our bodies, our souls have the capacity for unending renewal. Paul says “ though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). A tree is alive and it grows every day; it grows upward, downward and spreads its branches wide. Fruits are very often the desired parts of a plant. But there is no

          Nero Caesar was a cruel, inhuman monster. He is regarded by historians as one of the most vile and contemptible rulers ever to sit upon a throne. He commanded that the body of his own mother be ripped apart that he might see the womb that had borne him. He once saw a handsome young man in his court and he ordered him castrated and used him as a woman the rest of his life.   Nero was Caesar, his name was known all over the empire. The whole of the Roman world bowed to his will. The life of that mighty empire revolved around this man.   One day there stood before him this obscure little Jew, Paul the Apostle. He had scarcely been heard of except in a few isolated places where he had caused certain trouble. Paul was a small bodied prisoner in chains, standing before the mighty emperor. The amazing thing is that today the name Paul is known all over the world. The story of his life and the books that he wrote are read in every church in the world. Nero the most famous man i

  Brother Andrew smuggled Bibles behind the iron curtains to Christians oppressed under the communist regime. If caught the penalty would have been instant death. In his book “God smugglers” he wrote about how his solid faith in God that made him do such daring things started. He wrote “in September 1953 I walked up the hill carrying my suitcase. The building was a two storey house on the corner of a street. Over the entrance on a wooden archway were the words “have faith in God”. This I knew was the main purpose of the two year course at Glasgow; to help the student learnt all he could about the nature of faith; to learn from books, from others and from his own encounter. With fresh enthusiasm I walked under the arch and up the white pebbled path to the door. Mr Stewart Dinnen the director told me “The real purpose of this training is to teach our students that they can trust God to do what he has said he would do. We don’t go from here to traditional missionary fields but int