Do you know Mrs. Hutchings? I don’t, but I praise God for her! Did you know that decades ago she rendered an invaluable service to Jesus’ church? She exercised a simple gift that has, for almost sixty years now, blessed tens of thousands.
Perhaps you know of Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. MLJ (as I’ll call him) preached and pastored in Wales, and then England, from the late 1920’s through to the late 1960’s. In God’s gracious providence, the Holy Spirit used his faithful, powerful preaching in mighty ways. MLJ’s ministry continues to resonate, not only through recordings of his sermons (which you can listen to via the MLJ trust), but also through his written works, which are largely his preached sermons put into books.
Among MLJ’s writings is one sermon-series-turned-book titled Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. This book is a precious work of pastoral counsel. I read it, very slowly, some years back. Time-after-time as I read MLJ’s words, it felt like I was sitting in the pew of Westminster Chapel, hearing him preach, and finding the Holy Spirit dealing with my soul.
This morning I picked up Spiritual Depression again and opened to the “Forward.” There I found the following statement written by MLJ in 1964: “All who may derive some help from them [the sermons that form the book] will want to join with me in thanking Mrs. Hutchings who originally took down the sermons in shorthand…” Who is Mrs. Hutchings? She was, I suppose, a simple, relatively unknown saint, who exercised a gift of shorthand to record the words MLJ preached that eventually became Spiritual Depression. How many thousands of Christians have been helped by her “simple” labor? Would anyone have thought her ability with shorthand a “spiritual gift” set to bless tens of thousands over decades? Probably not. But, in the sovereign purpose of God, that’s exactly what it was, and what it became. Praise God!
Brother or sister, what simple gift has God given to you? What abilities and opportunities has he entrusted to you, with which to serve and love others in Jesus’ name? Do those abilities and opportunities seem small and insignificant in your eyes or the eyes of others? Perhaps they are. But, doesn’t the God who fed thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:13-21) multiply simple gifts and small opportunities? Doesn’t he make them mighty in the kingdom of God?
Praise God for Mrs. Hutchings!
Fix Your Mind 