Our Father's Ways - John 14:7,10
Wednesday March 9
Our Father's Ways - John 14: 7,10 (NIV)
“If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. . . Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”
In the late 1880’s George Bird Grinnell visited the Pawnee Agency in Indian Territory. When he went to call on Eagle Chief, his friend of many years, here’s how he described the purpose of his visit: “Father, we have come down here to…ask the people about how things used to be in olden times, to hear their stories, to get their history, and put these things down in a book.”
Hearing this, the chief meditated for a while and then said: “. . . It is well that they should be put down, so that our children, when they are like white people, can know their fathers’ ways.”
Eagle Chief understood the importance of having a written history of the culture, customs, and traditions of the Pawnee tribe to pass down to its children. He knew that the “old secrets” of the Pawnee people were being lost as the elders of the tribe died, taking with them many of the old ways.
The difference between Pawnee children knowing their fathers’ ways and a Christian knowing our Heavenly Father’s ways is an eternally profound one.
The Bible, the inerrant Word of God, tells the story of Jesus Christ, a life spent modeling the ways of the Father. Jesus understood that He was to be the revealed and fulfilled way of his Heavenly Father during his time on earth, and he lived accordingly.
Jesus knew his Father’s ways because the Father lived and dwelled inside of Him. We, too, can know the Father’s ways, through the power of the Holy Spirit, when Christ lives inside of us.
The unique ministry of Lutheran Indian Ministries brings the Good News of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to every Native American Nation so that they too may know the Father’s ways and live accordingly.
Father,
Thank you for revealing Your ways to us through the life and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus. Send Your Spirit to us that we may know Your will for our lives and walk in Your ways all of the days of our life, for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
Tim Young Eagle (Pawnee) - Wauwatosa, Wisconsi