"The kindness of strangers"

The title is a quotation from a play/movie that I (A) have never seen (B) nor wanted to see, but it totally fits.

This morning I sent off the endorsements I've received for God's Wisdom in Proverbs. Virtually everybody who agreed to read the manuscript for endorsement came through for me, which is amazing and wonderful all by itself.

But wait! It gets better!

Of these eleven busy, important men, I have only met two in the flesh. I have spoken over internet-phone to one other of them. That means that virtually all of them are virtual strangers to me or, more to the point, I to them.

Yet these busy, important men took the time to read and endorse this magnum opus of mine. How "magnum" is it, you ask? One of the men remarked, not untruthfully, that he had to clear a forest to print it out. That's because it's about forty-seven thousand pages long... or must have seemed it to the dedicated souls who made their way through it in such short order.

The array of men who took the time to do me this gracious favor is staggering and humbling. They include men whose writing or preaching has been a great profit to me, and to many. They're all busy men.

And me? I'm nobody! Worse, I'm — and please, make sure you're comfortably seated, with no sharp objects or hot liquids in hand — not universally loved. There are people who hate me, and not all completely "without cause."

Yet these gracious souls took the time to read and help me out in this one of two nearly-simultaneous publishing endeavors.

Now, in the course of all this, there were of course men who had to decline, due to their having overfull plates. I was just grateful that they took the time to respond. Nobody owed me anything.

Add to that the folks who previously contributed their endorsements for The World-Tilting Gospel.  Again, they're busy (many of them manically busy) folks, many with international ministries, yet they did me this grace.

John Piper inveighs against the "debtor's ethic" in Future Grace, a book that did me a world of good. He says that it is un-biblical to motivate service for God out of gratitude, or because we're indebted; we should do it out of faith. Regardless of whether Piper's right about God, I surely see myself as indebted to these men (and one woman).

I just pray earnestly that God uses the books to His glory and His people's good... and that these dear souls never regret the terrific help and blessing they've been to me.