of different metal

"Have my blood. Have it all. Let it be poured out for the life of the world." - Jim Elliot

"The men who are signed by the cross go merrily into the dark." - G.K. Chesterton

I had many heroes as a child and still do; though they were not the ordinary kind (I learned that at a young age). My heroes did not spin webs or fly or have a genetic upper-hand on other men. The men that my heart prized were men of prophetic word and profound action. They had weak bodies and similar struggles, but made their bodies slaves and subjected them fully to Christ. All of them sang a similar song of singular affection for one God, exalting in all His three persons. The world was not worthy of them and knew them only by the names: heretics, Methodists, nonconformists, Calvinists, insane, rebels, dividers, demented, crazy, etc. It was their actions that marked them and puzzled people, making others uncomfortable. They had a happy reliance upon One who is powerful, yet unseen, and seemed to particularly savor their time alone as though walking with an invisible lover of unmeasurable worth. They freely gave their lives as though they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. While their thoughts and passions united in a common cause their actions strayed dangerously far from common-sense. Though I championed them I found it hard, especially as a very young boy, to understand their actions that at times seemed to have no regard for family or friend, for national or personal interest; rather they seemed to move along, rapidly and in one direction, as a small, rudderless boat would, driven by a powerful wind towards some final shore. What caught my boyish wonder was was that no other passion I saw on earth compared to theirs. You could read it in their prose and their poetry, in the lines on their faces, in the large craters they made in history, and in how they spent their time and conducted their lives. The world, not understanding them, made offers to draw them back to the mortal shores. Freedom was offered if they stop preaching, money if they conformed, comfort if they settled-down; but all had already been counted loss for them. Christ was theirs and that is all they wanted. I have been told that they were merely men made of a different metal (as if they were not descendant of Adam too--born from the dust and returning), but I don't think that was the case. I think they faced a similar world with very similar emotions, only they refused to be known as the sons of Pharaoh's daughter (Hebrews 11:24), in the land of their captivity, but rather longed for their eternal home and the revelation of their true identity--sons of the Most High.