Blood brothers

I was in a meeting in South Carolina today with three friends all of whom are in their forties. The Lord has blessed me with several young friends who are engaged in business and who are seeking to walk with the Lord. As we concluded our meeting one of them said to me, “I love you, brother,” as we were hugging each other goodbye. There is a brotherly love that exists among men who walk with Jesus that sometimes goes deeper than blood brothers. That sounds strange—I remember as a boy when my friend and I would cut our hands and mix our blood so we could be blood brothers. That sounds savage but we learned it by watching Hopalong Cassidy on TV!

During our first term of service in West Africa we lived in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). One of the things that I disliked the most about living in that city was that the police were notorious for stopping cars for no apparent reason at all. They would be standing on the side of the road and when they waved at you they expected you to stop the car immediately. So, one day I got waved down (not the only time). There were 5 young Ivorian men in the car with me. I was mad and they were afraid—not because we had done anything wrong, but because a person could be stopped by the police for no reason and the policeman would take their government-issued identity card and put it under his hat until the person paid him a bribe.

The young men in my car were all new believers who were doing a Bible study with me. As I started to exit the car to confront the policeman one of them said that they would be praying for me.

I walked back to the policeman on the side of the road behind my car, and he asked for my driver’s license. I carried an international license for occasions just like this (you could buy another international license if the original was lost). After he scolded me for driving too fast (strictly a judgment call since he had no speed-checking devices), he put my license under his cap and said that I would have to pay a “fine” to get my license back. I was a young green missionary, but I had made up my mind that I would never pay a bribe. I paused silently and remembered my colleagues in the car praying for this situation.

The officer had walked away as if to ignore me, but I chased after him and told him (we are speaking French), “My brothers in the car are praying for you and me right now.” He turned and looked at my car and said that those men in the car could not be my brothers because they were Ivoirians. I said, “Pardon me, but they are indeed my brothers.” He said they could not be my blood brothers, and my reply was that we were blood brothers because of the blood of Jesus. He shocked me by responding, “That blood runs deeper than the same mother and same father,” and he gave me my license and said, “You are a good man who calls an African his blood brother.”

I returned to the car and my blood brothers were not shocked at what happened because they had been praying that the Lord would intervene in the heart of the policeman. They were faithful brothers who believed in the power of prayer and brotherhood.

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” Psalm 133:1 ESV