The Hand Holder

continued

"Now, at last," wrote Dr. Sacks, "Virgil is allowed to not see." Allowed to not see ... If we were suddenly able to see as God sees - the entire past, the entire future, the ultimate consequence of each thing we do, each word we speak - perhaps we too would be unable to cope. Perhaps in his compassion God must keep us in the dark.

But I think his hand-holding goes far beyond mere necessity. In the 1960s when our kids were teenagers, a Beatles song throbbed through our house: "I Want to Hold Your H-a-a-a-nd," came through the closed door where I'd be trying to work, till I'd end up holding my ears.

But I believe God sings the same refrain. I think he longs to keep us company, to walk at our side like a lover, hand in hand. I think he doesn't reveal the future to us, not only because we couldn't handle it, but because if he did we'd drop his hand and race ahead alone. "Thanks! I see how to get there now!"

Getting there, even to some noble goal, is not as important to God, I suspect, as the journey in companionship with him. It's relationship, not achievement, that he wants. This is the opinion, at least, of one of the greatest achievers I know.

Andrew van der Bijl, "Brother Andrew" to millions, is a Dutchman, today in his seventies, who for over forty years has been bringing the good news of God to places where Christians "cannot" go, first behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, today in the Muslim world.

When John and I were writing God's Smuggler, the story of Andrew's adventures, we began by asking about his accomplishments. How many Communist countries had he worked in? How many people had he reached? There were impressive answers to all this, but Andrew thought they were the wrong questions. These weren't the things he wanted people to remember. "What I hope someone will say about me some day is what the Book of Genesis says about Enoch, 'Enoch walked with God.'''

It's an hour by hour, minute by minute thing, Andrew said. "God doesn't set us a task and come back later to see how we've done. He goes with us every inch of the way." And it's along the way that the important thing happens, the creature falling in step with the Creator.

Enoch walked with God. Andrew spoke it like an invocation, like a four-word prayer. "If that could be said of me, it's all the reputation I'd ever want."