The Game of the Royal Way - Part 5: Laundry Soap, Toothpaste, and Razor Blades

In the last post, Without Reserve, we saw Andrew and four of his fellow students assigned an experiment in faith. They travelled around Scotland, living and ministering, for a whole month, on a sum of just five pounds. The experiment tested their faith, tried it, and proved it to be true. 

“With this kind of experience behind me, I was not really surprised to find waiting for me when we got back to school a check from the Whestras that was exactly enough, when converted into pounds, to pay my second terms fee.” - Brother Andrew, God's Smuggler

Andrew had made an agreement with God, he had agreed to say “yes” to whatever God asked of him. He had agreed to trust God to remove every hindrance and in each circumstance to make a way for him to obey. He had come to realise that this agreement was simply faith. Faith was trusting God implicitly and obedience was the practical demonstration of that trust in each situation.

 His tuition fees provided the first practical opportunity for Andrew to put his faith into practice. Andrew was sure that God had led him to come to the WEC school, but he had only enough savings to pay for the first semester and no way of making the rest of the money while he was there. He had gone, nevertheless, trusting that God would supply the rest of the fees as they were needed. He had prayed, *“Lord, I need to know that I can trust You in the practical things. I thank You for letting me earn the fees for the first semester. I ask You now to supply the rest of them.” (see The Question of His Character).  

“Before the second term was over, I had received enough money to keep me a third, this time from – of all places – some buddies at the veteran’s hospital. And so, it went through the second year too.

I never mentioned the school fees to anyone, and yet the gifts always came at such a moment that I could pay them in full and on time. Nor did they ever contain more than the school costs, and – in spite of the fact that the people who were helping me did not know one another – they never came two together. I was experiencing God’s faithfulness continually, and I was also finding out something about His sense of humor. I had made a covenant with God never to run out of money for school fees. My covenant had said nothing about running out of soap. Or toothpaste. Or razor blades.

One morning I discovered that I was out of laundry soap. But when I reached into the drawer where I kept my money, all I could find was six-pence. Laundry soap cost eight-pence.

“You know that I have to keep clean, God. So, will You work it out about the two pennies?” I took my sixpence and made my way to the street where the shops were, and sure enough, right away I saw a sign. ‘Two-pence off! By your SURF now.’ I walked in, made my savings, and strolled back up the hill whistling. There was plenty of soap in that box to last, with care, until the end of school. But that very night a friend saw me washing out a shirt and shouted,

“Say, Andrew, lend me some soap, will you? I’m out.”

Of course, I let him have the soap and said nothing. I just watched him pour out my precious Surf, knowing somehow that he wasn’t going to pay it back. Everyday he borrowed a bit more of that soap, and everyday I had to use a bit less.

Then it was the toothpaste. The tube was really finished. Squeezed, twisted, torn apart, and scraped – finished. I had read somewhere that common table salt makes a good dentifrice. And no doubt my teeth got clean, but my mouth wore a permanent pucker.

And razor blades. I had not thrown away my used blades and sure enough the day came when I had to resurrect them. I had no hone, so I stropped them on my bare arm. Ten minutes a day on my bare skin: I remained clean shaven – but it was at a price. Perhaps God was using these experiences to teach me the difference between a want and a need. Toothpaste tasted good, new razor blades shaved quicker – but these were luxuries, not necessities. I was certain that should a real need arise, God would supply it.

A true need did arise. It was necessary for foreigners in Britain to renew their visas at periodic intervals. I had to have mine renewed by the thirty-first of December, 1954, or leave the country. But when that month rolled around, I did not have a cent to my name. How was I going to get the forms down to London? A registered letter cost one shilling – twelve pennies. I did not believe that God was going to let me be thrown out of school for the lack of a shilling.

And so, the game moved into a new phase. I had a name for it now. I called it the Game of the Royal Way. I had discovered that when God supplied money, He did it in a kingly manner, not in a groveling way.

Three separate times, over the matter of that registered letter, I was almost lured from the Royal Way. I was, that last year, head of the student body and in charge of the school’s tract fund. One day my eye lit first on the calendar – it was the twenty- eighth of December – and then on the fund. It happened to contain several pounds just then. Surely it would be all right to borrow just one shilling. And surely not! I quickly put the idea behind me.

Then it was the twenty-ninth of December. Two days left. I had almost forgotten how bitter salt tasted and how long it took to strop a razor blade on my arm, so intrigued was I over the drama of the shilling. That morning the thought occurred to me that perhaps I might find those pennies lying on the ground. I had actually put on my coat and started down the street before I saw what I was doing. I was walking along with the head bowed, eyes on the ground, searching the gutter for pennies. What kind of a Royal Way is this! I straightened up and laughed out loud there on the busy street. I walked back to school with my head high, but no closer to getting the money.

The last round in the game was the subtlest of all. It was December 30. I had to have my application in the mail that day if it was to get to London on the thirty-first. At ten o’clock in the morning, one of the students shouted up the stairwell that I had a visitor. I ran down the stairs thinking that this must be my delivering angel. But when I saw who it was, my heart dropped. This visitor wasn’t coming to bring me money; he was coming to ask for it. For it was Richard, a friend I had made months ago in the slums, he was a young man who came to the school occasionally when he just had to have cash.

With dragging feet, I went outside. Richard stood on the white-pebbled pathway, his hands in his pockets, eyes lowered.

“Andrew,” he said, “would you be having a little extra cash? I’m hungry.”

I laughed and told him why. I told him about the soap and the razor blades, and as I spoke, I saw the coin. It lay among the pebbles, the sun glinting off it in just such a way that I could see it but Richard could not. I could tell from the colour that it was a shilling. Instinctively I stuck out my foot and covered the coin with my shoe. Then as Richard and I talked, I reached down and picked up the coin along with a handful of pebbles. I tossed the pebbles down one by one, aimlessly, until at last I had just the shilling in my hand. But even as I dropped the coin in my pocket, the battle began.

That coin meant I could stay in school. I wouldn’t be doing Richard a favor by giving it to him: he’d spend it on drink and be thirsty as ever in an hour. While I was still thinking up excellent arguments, I knew it was no good. How could I judge Richard when Christ told me so clearly that I must not. Furthermore, this was not the Royal Way! What right had an ambassador to hold on to money when another of the King’s children stood in front of him saying he was hungry. I shoved my hand back into my pocket and drew out the silver coin.

“Look, Richard,” I said, “I do have this. Would it help any?”

Richard’s eyes lit up. “It would, mate.” He tossed the coin into the air and ran off down the hill. With a light heart that told me I had done the right thing, I turned to go back inside.

Before I reached the door, the postman turned down our walk. In the mail of course was a letter for me. I knew when I saw Greetje’s handwriting that it would be from the prayer group at Ringer’s and that there would be cash inside. There was. A lot of money: a pound and a half – thirty shillings. Far more than enough to send my letter, buy a large box of soap, treat myself to my favourite toothpaste, and buy Gillete Supers instead of Blues.

The game was over. The King had done it His way.” - Brother Andrew, God's Smuggler

Andrew was learning about faith. That was what the Game of the Royal Way was all about. That was what the teaching at the WEC missionary school was all about. He had learned that faith was inextricably tied to obedience. That faith gave God an opportunity to be faithful. He had learned that who it was that his faith was placed in and that He was worthy of that faith. He had learned that faith must be without doubting. All this he had learned, re-learned, and would continue to learn for years to come.

 In Luke xviii.8, Jesus asked a question. He said, “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” That is a question that we should be asking ourselves on a regular basis. Will He find faith in the earth? Will He find faith in us? It should be our desire that He would. Though, like Andrew, we may need to learn what faith is, we should desire it. We need to play the Game of the Royal Way and allow the Holy Spirit to train us in faith - in what it is, how to get it, and how it works. To teach us those lessons multiple times if necessary. Starting now... 

What is faith, how do we get it, and how does it work?

“Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward, gracious disposition of heart – something tangible, in fact, which, when you have it, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God’s favour, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts…Faith, in fact, is not the least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God.”- Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life

Faith is simply trusting in God. It is not something that is found, made, or conjured up. It is not some sort of a virtue, attribute, or wishful thinking. It is simply trust. Absolute, unshakeable trust. Complete and total confidence in the person of God, Himself. This trust is gained through knowing God. 

“Like sight, faith is nothing apart from its object…You see something and thus know you have sight; you believe something and thus know that you have faith. For as sight is only seeing, faith is only believing. As the only necessary thing about seeing is, that you see the thing as it is, so the only necessary thing about believing is that you believe the thing as it is. The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing that you believe. If you believe the truth you are saved; if you believe a lie you are lost. The believing in both cases is the same; the things believed in are exactly opposite, and it is this which makes the mighty difference. Salvation comes, not because your faith saves you, but because it links you to the Saviour who saves. Faith is really nothing but the link.”- Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life

In, The Question of His Character, I gave an illustration of a bedsheet and a parachute to demonstrate the importance of what you trust, or have faith, in. The parachute could not save you unless you trusted in it. But the bedsheet could not save you no matter how much you trust it. Thus, we see that the object in which our faith is placed is of the utmost importance. In John xi.25 Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” We believe in Him. We trust in the One who is worthy of trust. Jesus Christ is the parachute – the only one who is able to save us. To save us from the penalty of sin and from its power in each day. The only one who can provide all that we need for life and godliness.

 Faith is simply that which links us to Him. Yet it is of the utmost importance for we must be linked to Him! Faith has to be present for God to work on our behalf, just as trust must be present for a parachute to work. The parachute needs to be picked up, buckled on, and the string that will deploy it needs to be pulled after the person has jumped. All of these actions - obedience to the instructions of the parachute - are practical demonstrations of faith. In this way faith and obedience are inextricably linked. The parachute will not work unless it is trusted, and trust will not work unless it is put into action. This is what James ii.17 tells us, when we read “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Each time that Andrew needed to have faith that faith was accompanied by a practical action. To take a step forward, to walk to the evening meeting, to bring his needs before God alone, to refuse to take the money he needed from the tract fund, to give away the shilling after he found it. Had Andrew confessed to have faith, said he trusted God, but not followed through in action it would have done no good. For his faith would have been of no use. If it could have been called faith at all, it would be, as we see in James, a dead faith. The same is true when faith is countered by doubt. Anyone can say they have faith, but those who really do will prove it in and through their actions.

God desires to find faith in the earth. He is willing to teach us the same lessons that Andrew learned and He has invited each one of us to start playing the Game of the Royal Way. To choose obedience. To learn trust. To know Him and to see His faithfulness. To re-learn those lessons over and over until we truly walk in the Royal Way He has set before us. The question is, will we even begin to play? Or are we content to always live saying "yes, but" to God. To live like the hint missionaries, who claimed that their faith was in God though it was really placed in the offering plat. Or like the group who held onto the tithe - in case of an emergency- instead of holding onto God in the case of an emergency.

 When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith not just in the earth but in you and I?

In Christ

quiana

* Quotes, excerpts, and facts have been taken from Brother Andrew's book God's Smuggler