We Stand on the Shoulders of Someone Who Believed in Us

Saturday, August 8, 2026
Pull Up a Rocking Chair

Pull up a rocking chair. Let me tell you something I have been thinking about.

None of us becomes who we are entirely on our own.

We are influenced by music we have heard, books we have read, television shows and movies we have watched, places we have visited, and people whose lives have crossed ours.

Sometimes we are even influenced by places we have never been, books we have never read, and people who lived centuries before we were born.

We stand on somebody’s shoulders.

When I think about the people who have influenced my journey of faith, many of them are people I have never met.

I think about David.

He was a shepherd boy sent by his father to take food to his brothers who were serving in King Saul’s army. David wasn’t a soldier. He was young—too young for battle.

But when everyone else saw Goliath and saw a giant they could never defeat, David saw something different.

He trusted God.

And sometimes when I read that story, I recognize a little of myself in that shepherd boy.

My father died when I was fourteen. He had been serving a small country church, and suddenly that little congregation was without its pastor.

I felt God calling me.

At fifteen years old, I became their pastor.

I certainly didn’t know everything I needed to know. Looking back now, I realize how much I didn’t know.

But sometimes God doesn’t seem nearly as concerned about our qualifications as we are.

Then there is Jonah.

I recognize him too.

There have been times when I knew what God was asking me to do and headed in the opposite direction.

There have even been seasons of my life when I felt as though I were sitting in the belly of that great fish, wondering how I had gotten there and whether I would ever see daylight again.

Yet God wasn’t finished with Jonah.

And God wasn’t finished with me.

I recognize something of myself in Paul as well.

Paul traveled from place to place trying to explain the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who didn’t always understand it. He taught. He argued. He wrote letters. He answered questions.

Sometimes he probably wondered whether anyone was listening.

I understand that feeling.

And then there is Peter.

Peter’s vision in Acts challenged everything he thought he understood about what was clean and unclean, acceptable and unacceptable.

God was making Peter’s world bigger.

Peter had to learn that God’s grace was reaching people he had never imagined it could reach.

I understand something about that journey too.

The longer I walk with God, the more I discover that God’s table is larger than I once imagined.

David.

Jonah.

Paul.

Peter.

And so many others.

Men and women whose stories have been told for generations. Some courageous. Some frightened. Some faithful. Some stubborn. Some certain. Some confused.

Ordinary human beings.

People like us.

I stand on their shoulders.

But I also stand on the shoulders of people whose names will never appear in history books—parents, pastors, teachers, friends, church members, and ordinary people who believed in me at moments when I wasn’t quite sure I believed in myself.

And perhaps that is one of the beautiful mysteries of grace.

God has always used ordinary people.

Shepherd boys.

Fishermen.

Tentmakers.

Widows.

Farmers.

Teachers.

People who stumble.

People who question.

People who sometimes run away.

People who get back up and keep walking.

People like me.

People like you.

I am simply an ordinary pilgrim who continues to stand in awe of God—the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of us all.

And after all these years, I am still walking.

Still learning.

Still asking questions.

Still discovering grace.

And still standing on the shoulders of those who walked this road before me.

Perhaps someday, without even realizing it, someone may stand on ours.

The Curious Pilgrim
Reflections on faith, family, and mysterious grace.