Blood Brothers

I was in a meeting recently with three friends, and we were talking about legacy. It was a joy for me because all three are in their forties, and we were talking about legacy. Unfortunately, most people wait until they are about to die to talk about legacy. Equally unfortunate is the fact that these people talk mostly about leaving their valuables to their family and favorite charities. But in our conversation that day about legacy, these young men wanted to talk more about values than valuables.

As we concluded our meeting one the young men 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 our own blood brothers. That might sound strange to some people.

I remember as a boy when my friend and I would make a tiny cut on our finger and mix our blood so we could be blood brothers. That sounds savage but we learned it by watching double feature westerns at the movie theater on Saturday afternoons.

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. One day a policeman waved me down (not the only time), and I stopped on the side of the road. 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, and we were headed to a Bible study. As I stepped out of the car to confront the policeman one of them said that they would all 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 (it was fairly easy to 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. Upon my arrival in West Africa I had made up my mind that I would never pay a bribe. I guarded my tongue, took a couple deep breaths 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 because we were different ethnic groups. 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 returned 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 had 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