If you hang around me for very long you will eventually hear certain stories from my life. Some are goofy and basically pointless. Others let you into to some of the most important things about what makes me “me.” I cannot understate how much I value my spiritual heritage. Stories of our spiritual heritage are a testimony to God’s faithfulness and grace in our lives.

This past weekend at my church, I had the honor of speaking and told a couple of stories from one the most important figures in my spiritual journey, my grandfather, Richard Anderson Hunt Sr. It really is impossible for me to say everything that could be said about his influence in my life. Even during the stage of my life when I was not really thinking about spiritual things, he was faithfully and graciously influencing me. There were even times when he had a profound impact on my life and he didn’t even realize it.

He was a great man of God. He loved Jesus so much. He loved God’s Word more than any one I’ve known. He was faithful all the way to the very end.

Shortly after he passed away the following article was written about him and published in the news paper in his town. I think it captures the heart of my grandfather in a beautiful way.

This is my spiritual heritage.

PRINCE
By Jim Hamlin, June 1992

“I can’t quite remember when I first met him but I do recall my first impressions. Immediately, I was impressed by his hulking frame, the strength of his handshake and how he looked me right in the eye and called me “brother”. I found myself mesmerized by his deep resounding voice and by the way he said “Jesus.” The warmth of his smile and the tenderness with which he spoke betrayed a “gentle giant” within.

The longer I knew him and the more intimate our relationship became, the more I was convinced that he was a prince in an ordinary man’s clothes. He had a heart undivided in its allegiance to God. The passion of his life was to know Christ and to enable others to know him. If you had cut him, he would have bled the Word of God. He was saturated with the Scriptures. His character was impeccable, his conduct was without criticism. An unassuming nature and genuine humility graced his life.

In the days of ancient Rome, shoddy building contractors would hide a flaw in the column by smoothing it over with wax. Honest builders developed an industry seal “sine (without) caries (flaw). It’s the term from which we get our word “sincerely”. Literally it means, “without wax.” Brother Richard Hunt was truly a “man without wax,” sincere in all his ways.

The cancer that finally took his life also opened the inner sanctum of his soul to me. God cannot trust everyone with the intensity of suffering He allowed to touch Brother Richard. Though we could not give logical human reasons for the “whys”, we both understood that through the suffering, God was working in his life. Though the outer man was passing away, his inner man was becoming stronger with each passing day.

Brother Richard was possessed with Christian assurance…assurance that did not fail him last Thursday. He was transported from this life into the place His Lord had prepared for him. Upon his death, we might well remember the words of Horatio from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” But more importantly, these words: “well done, good and faithful servant of mine; you have been faithful over a few things, I will now make you ruler over many things: enter into the joy of your Lord.”

In 1 Thessalonians 2 the Apostle Paul is looking back at his time with that small church and reflects on this question that he will be asked of him when he sees Jesus face to face.:

“¹⁹ For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? ²⁰ Indeed, you are our glory and joy.”

I know that when Jesus asked that question of Richard Anderson Hunt Sr, he was surrounded by more people than can be counted. I am grateful to be one of those.