God Wrote Every Chapter in Your Story

In 1956, Steve Saint was five years old when his father, Nate, flew a Piper Cruiser plane with four other missionaries into the jungles of Equador and dared to make contact with the most dangerous tribe known to man, the Waodani (whoa-DONNY) also known as “Auca,” or naked savage.

After several months of exchanging gifts with the natives, the five men were speared multiple times and hacked to death with machetes. One of the men in the tribe that fateful day was Mincaye (min-KY-yee). Years later Steve found out that Mincaye actually delivered the final spear that ultimately killed his father.

The Story

“But with God all things are possible. It has everything to do with God and his grace that sustains—not just over the long haul, but grace given in tiny moments, like stepping-stones leading you from one tick of the clock to the next. And the beauty of God’s grace is that it squeezes those hard moments together, eclipsing the years until one day you look over your shoulder and all you see is five decades of God at work”, Joni Eareckson Tada

 “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” John 12:24-25 The Message (MSG)

Many are confounded by the relationship Steve has with Mincaye. He says that a USAToday reporter commented that if he were in Steve’s shoes, he could “forgive Mincaye, maybe. But love him, that’s morbid.” Steve says that their relationship doesn’t make sense unless you put God in the equation. Even though his dad’s death was painful, Steve says Mincaye would not have adopted him and he would not have been part of the mysterious, stoneage Waodani world. Also thousands of people, who were stirred by the missionaries’ deaths, would not have dedicated their lives to helping take the gospel to unreached groups like Waodani all over the world.

Mincaye tells how his life changed because of the love shown by the sister of Nate Saint and the widows of the men he killed. When Mincaye learned about the Columbine tragedy, he agreed that a movie should be made of their story so that the ‘foreigners’ could learn to walk God’s trail and not live ‘badly, badly’ as they did. Mincaye tells of his first visit to America to teach the ‘foreigners’ to walk ‘God’s trail’.

The end is only the beginning.

Elisabeth Elliot — ‘Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends with ‘ashes.’

By God’s grace, I am learning that in these in-between chapters, character development takes place. He’s teaching me trust, patience, and how to wait on him through the unknown. Just like with “End Of The Spear”, unexpected twists and turns and trials come into our lives, many of them being entirely out of our control. But the author always knows how the story is going to end before the characters do.

I have no need to anxiously distrust him and fear what is written in my chapters ahead. I can rely on his faithfulness as a Shepherd to guide me to the end. I can depend on him, because I know that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”