“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13

My grandfather and grandmother have both passed away. They have been gone for a bit now.

Yet I often wish I could ask them for advice.

My grandmother was a very caring person. She loved her family deeply. Her definition of family was also ever expanding. Lots of neighborhood kids knew her as “Meme” like I did. Many young mothers hard on their luck benefitted from her babysitting. Many more benefitted from the blankets and quilts she liked to make. I wish I had the chance to ask her what inspired her to do all of this as she never really explained it. She was just kind to the core.

My grandfather, on the other hand, explained everything. He had an anecdote or story for every occasion. He loved to talk and give advice. But often, the best advice my grandfather offered wasn’t from anything he actually said.

Here’s an example: When my grandfather and grandmother were both young, they befriended an immigrant family from China. This was during a time and place when such an action was viewed a bit suspiciously. My grandfather’s dad fought in WW2, and prejudice against anyone who looked Asian was still rampant. However, this did not deter my grandparents from befriending this couple, and they stayed friends for their entire lives. They were in attendance at my grandfather’s funeral.

My grandparents loved the local church.

When they would reminisce about their past, they’d connect pieces of their history to whatever church they were attending at that time. Church history often came before job history or lots of other common things like that. But that’s because they were both very committed members of several congregations. The First Church of the Nazarene in Wichita Falls, TX and Mona Shores Baptist Church in Muskegon, MI to name just a few.

My grandparent’s Bibles were falling apart from overuse.

I have their shared Bible in my library now, and I thumb through it occasionally. It’s fun to read all of the notes they’d written in the margins. They loved God’s Word – but, they weren’t legalistic about it. In fact, my grandfather was one of the first people I knew who adopted the Message version of the Bible as his daily reader. He recognized that some parts of scripture were unclear. He did his best to understand them (as the Message Bible uses simpler language), but that didn’t stop him from admitting he didn’t always grasp things fully. On more than one occasion, he expressed to me that he was looking forward to asking Paul, or Matthew, or whoever what exactly they meant by what they wrote in their books and letters.

They both had their flaws and biases. They were often a bit more direct with their words than they needed to be. They weren’t perfect people. None of us are. But unlike other Christians that I knew who were their age, both of them expressed a much greater willingness to work “across the aisle” when it came to theological or denominational differences. My grandparents had their convictions, but they valued and loved others regardless of differing opinion.

And despite living in both Texas and Michigan, they didn’t love in that southern “bless your heart” style of love that often uses platitudes to mask contempt, or even in the “Midwestern-nice” manner which often uses politeness as a weapon. Their love for others was genuine. They didn’t just talk about sins they were against. They both lived out their faith in a way that clearly displayed what they were for: other people.  

Here’s another example: I had a conversation with my grandfather on the phone a few weeks before he passed away. He expressed to me that he saw the work he was doing within the nursing home where he lived as his final ministry of sorts. He recognized that lots of people in adjacent rooms were very lonely and isolated. And he, being more mobile than many others, had been making rounds each day to both talk and listen to other residents. He’d hear their stories. He’d tell them about his own life. He’d make friends.

After my grandfather passed, the nursing home broke their own policy to host a funeral for my grandfather within their own residence. It was overwhelming to see how many people came to offer condolences to my grandmother, and to express that “Bill was the best friend they had ever had in their entire life.”

There is a kind of fakeness about the faith of many Christians today.

But I guess such a thing isn’t really new to our time. The Apostle John warned his readers about ingenuine faith quite a while ago. Writing to a group of early believers in Asia Minor, John states that believers can be confident in their salvation based on their love for one another. Were they caring for the poor and marginalized in their midst? Or were they just offering up platitudes void of real action? As John wrote in 1 John 3:17-18, “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” My grandmother knew Jesus, and His love for her spurred her on to literally offer both food and warmth to those in need. My grandfather knew Jesus and His love for him spurred him on to befriend anyone and everyone no matter who they were.

I am curious about what my grandchildren will say about me if I am ever blessed with such a thing. What type of faith will they recognize within me? Will they see a stagnant, self-centered faith too preoccupied with things and right opinions? I hope not. I hope they see Jesus in me through my love for others just as I’ve seen Jesus through the faith of my grandparents.