Weekly Reading: Chapters 22-23

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Hello from the Lamplighter shipping room! Or as I (Emily) prefer to call it, the WOR-shipping room! As one can imagine, there are a lot of books coming in and out of here every day, and one of my favorites is Tip Lewis and His Lamp! Let’s jump back into the story on today’s episode of Character in Crisis!

This week, we find Tip cheerfully hurrying by Mr. Minturn’s store door, running errands and dreaming about the school books he’ll buy with his wages. Another step towards education—woohoo!

And then, here comes Mr. Minturn himself, with a clear and calculated question:

“So you’re going to keep on at school, are you? I thought likely, since your father was laid up, you’d be hunting for steady work, so you could help the family along. There’s a hard winter coming, you know.”

There was no mistaking Mr. Minturn’s tone. It says, as plainly as words could have done, “That’s what I think you ought to do.”

What a disheartening moment for Tip…Here he is, working his heart out trying to get an education to become a minister (what’s more noble than that?!) just to hear these convicting words. Imagine the way his stomach must have dropped when he realized this respected mentor has other ideas for Tip’s future. And, not only an idea, but a plan.

Mr. Minturn lays the whole plan out before him—a well-paid job under a godly and generous store owner, with plenty of opportunities for Tip to work his way up and make a living for his dying father and overworked mother.

But Tip has already made his mind up about the matter:

“Yes,” [Tip] said, decidedly; “I’m going to keep on at school, that’s certain; thank you all the same.”

Tip isn’t about to give up on his dream, no way! He’s worked too hard!

But the Holy Spirit keeps a strict watch on His children, and Tip has to try for the rest of the day to quench that still, small Voice guiding him to do what is right. A long afternoon of joyless work and spiritual battle follow Tip’s conversation with Mr. Minturn. And yet, the logic and reasoning of the flesh will fail when pitted against a spirit fed as well as Tip’s has been. All that time with his Lamp has made Tip’s spirit more like Jesus. And Jesus says, “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Back at the store that evening, Tip tells Mr. Minturn he will accept the offered position of steady work. The battle is quietly won and:

“...Mr. Minturn never knew what a downfall that decision had been to the boy’s dear hopes and plans.”

It is always painful to let go of our own desires in sacrifice for others, especially when we desire something good! How can it be wrong of Tip to want an education? To be a minister? He wants to offer others the gift he was so freely given—the way of salvation!

And yet, perhaps in a new way, Tip must learn what Kitty had learnt at home not long ago:

“You can find plenty of work if you look for it; only don’t look too far, because it is the little bits of things, which come right in your way, that Jesus wants you to do,”— Mr. Holbrook.

It seems Jesus has put “a little bit” of something right in Tip’s path. It’s not what he expected or hoped, but then again, God doesn’t often fit in the box of convention and reason.

And who knows, maybe that noble dream of Tip’s will come back around someday. Who’s to say that if Tip goes to work now, his whole future is written in stone? I have a feeling that there are some surprises ahead for our friend Mr. Tip Lewis!

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Have a beautiful day!

An aspiring servant,