Little Ones of the Master
by Jerry Johnson
I had the honor of getting to know a dear sweet lady a few years ago. Though a precious, weathered saint of God, she never preached great flowery sermons; never won a city full of heathens to Jesus; she never impressed anyone that I know of with being all that spiritually mighty. But what I learned from knowing her was God’s perspective of His little children. He doesn’t keep score the way we do…He’s looking on the heart. No one took note as she faithfully read her little devotional book and bowed on her knees to the Lord Jesus beside her bed most every morning for fifty years to ask God to somehow get her through each day. She was never the Bible teacher at church; she always went to learn. But the Lord gave me the honor of seeing into this magnanimous soul. There I found a rare, solid-iron, death-defying faith in her Savior. The time came for me to stand, shocked, beside what I knew to be her deathbed. I asked God what I could say. I felt He didn’t want ME to say anything. I asked HIM what HE wanted to say. He replied in His tender way to my heart, “Suffer my little child to come unto me.” I wrote this poem that night.
They’re precious, innocent, trusting, sublime:
Little ones of the Master,
Unaged by the passing of time.
Believing beyond any hope of reason:
Little ones of the Master,
Warmed from within, this winter season.
Passing their mem’ries, their faults and cares,
Little ones of the Master
Feel pain only their Father shares.
A moment’s suffering a lifetime long,
Little Ones of the Master
Bear their cross with a silent song.
Touching everyone, holding no one firm,
Little ones of the Master
Lean on Him their hopes to confirm.
Wordless, they defy the doubts of mankind:
Little ones of the Master
Are a shout of eternal rhyme!
Bold at the threshold of Destiny’s door:
Little ones of the Master,
Childlike, embark from mortal shore;
For they, most clearly, hear the call from across the sea
To the little ones of the Master:
“Suffer My little children to come unto me.”