Day Twenty-Two: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

“Learn from mistakes; preferably someone else’s.” Unknown

It seems that young people in the church (and pretty much everywhere else as well) are quick to stand up and point out what their predecessors did wrong. They overemphasized this… they underemphasized that… they weren’t tough enough on that sin… they were far too lenient on this other one. The battle of the generations is not new to generations X and Y and our baby booming grandparents; the tension was there between our grandparents and their grandparents and will still be there between our grandchildren and us.

While peaceful co-existence and respect are important, in many ways, this is the way it’s supposed to be. We stand on the shoulders of giants; we should see farer and clearer than the giants beneath us could have imagined.  We can just never forget that we know more and see more because the generations that come before us are holding us up so high.

Truth is not progressive, but our understanding of it is. For example, the founders of the United States knew that freedom was important, but they believed freedom only applied to white males. Over time, their descendents discovered that freedom applied to the black man and the woman as well. It applied to the rich and the poor, the immigrant and the native born. Freedom never changed, but humanity’s understanding of it has expanded tremendously.

The same is true of our understanding of God, how he relates to us, and what the duty of a Christian is. Each generation has the opportunity to know more about and practice better these truths than the generations before. We have the honor of learning everything they knew and a few things they didn’t.

It is right to look at what our predecessors did and wonder if it couldn’t be done better. It’s ok to feel like certain people groups or causes have been neglected.   Our parents did great things; we should do greater still. 

If the people of God were to build a great building--- a church of every generation, nation, tribe, and tongue--- each new layer would naturally be higher than the one before it because it rests on the layers below it. Each layer of brick would be better made because the mortars are refining their craft more with each layer.

The danger is in forgetting that we see farther only because we stand on the shoulders of giants. If we know more, it is not because we are inherently more perceptive, but because we have been given a gift that we did not earn. We have two thousand years of Christian triumphs and defeats to learn from.  We should build on the victories and avoid the failures.

Then someday, our spiritual children and grandchildren can look back at us, and learn from our mistakes and expand upon our successes. We will be the giants on whose shoulders they stand seeing more than we could have imagined.