Hello everyone, welcome back to Character in Crisis.

Upon first reading Tip Lewis and His Lamp, I was compelled by its quiet sincerity. Tip’s inner world is an example to consider with a calm mind and an honest heart. How much can be revealed when we see our choices in the form of another’s life!

Chapters 3 and 4 ask its readers: what do you want? Young Tip Lewis wanted a good time.

“…he was beginning to feel as if the Fourth of July were a humbug. He felt ill-used, angry; it seemed to him that he was being cheated out of a good time that he expected to have.”

There he was, as lost as the time he regularly threw away, passing through the street with listless hands and wandering feet. What a contrast then, was the hurrying figure of Mr. Minturn, with his hands full of parcels and time filled with preparations. The owner of the white house stopped before Tip, asking questions, when he said the unexpected.

“Fun. Is that what you’re after? You come up to my house to-night at dark and see if you can find it there.”

Shock and surprise almost took Tip’s breath away, for here was an invitation from the man himself. Mr. Minturn did not know Tip’s desire or his heavy heart, but he knew the call of his King,

“Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find” (Matthew 22:9).

And there stood Tip, the son of the carpenter and one of the ragged poor, invited by the owner of “the broad green lawns and the bubbling fountain.” And here you are. Such a scene invites one to step into the shoes of the characters and wonder, at that moment: what do you want, and what may God be inviting you to?

Jesus is the one who sees and the one who saves. We who know Him are His hands and feet, His servants. Are you like the owner of the large white house or the wanderer on the streets? We are all in a position of influence. Our Lord Jesus says,

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit…” (John 7:38).

Perhaps you have a heavy heart, as Tip and his family did, weighed down by the loss of little Johnny, and you have heard the voices in your heart that struggle to persuade you. Whatever your grief, there is One who listens with compassion to your cries.

Tip knew it. He knew and so he knelt to pray before the very mound of his grief, crying, “I want to be different; I’m a wicked boy. I want to go where Johnny is when I die; do show me how!”

May we all find the innocence and genuine truth of such a prayer. Like the man who cried out, “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) May our hearts echo the words of young Tip who cried— “I want to be different…do show me how!”

“Did Jesus ever fail to hear such a prayer as that,—simple, earnest, every word of it felt? Never—and He never will. Tip rose up from that spot, feeling that something was different. Aye, and always would be different; the Saviour had reached down and taken hold of the young seeker’s hand, and would forever after lead him up toward God.”

What a rich and full two chapters! There is so much insight in this down-to-earth presentation of sincere faith. May we offer ourselves to Jesus simply and in earnest, every day. Next up, chapters 5 and 6 with Miss Molly Mayo! 

See you soon!