Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  Wallace’s words had been clear, though Robbie had tried to discount it because of the doctor’s demeanor. But Wallace had given him the answer to his most basic question.

  “To be a believer, a Christian, in the true sense, means to place your trust in Jesus Christ, depending on Him for all of the decisions and goals and priorities and attitudes and values of your life. To depend on Him entirely. To give yourself wholly to Him. To become like Him. To live like Him. To model your life after His. To obey His commands and instructions . . .”

  Was dependence on Him the only way to follow God? Again the question nagged at him. How could he trust this Jesus so much as to forsake what had always been essential to who he was as a person?

  In response Hsi-chen’s gentle voice came back out of the past to remind him that it was precisely his personhood—his, and his alone!—that Jesus came to give himself for, to fulfill, to make whole. “Jesus came from God, as God’s Son, to show men the truth. Jesus died for each individual person—for you, Mr. Taggart, and for me—for everyone. That is what God’s love means. That is the gospel.”

  Still Robbie resisted. Still he held back from admitting that he needed the kind of wholeness God had to give him. Still he tried to excuse his reluctance by imagining it was the loss of his hand which had suddenly made him less than whole and more in need of a Savior. But it was not the loss of his hand. Robbie, like all men since Adam, had always been less than whole and in need of the Savior. He was only now beginning to see it. He had had to lose a hand in order to enable God to focus his eyes on the true nature of his need.

  But at last, by degrees, his eyes were opening and his spirit was struggling to awaken. Even as he wrestled with question after question, he recalled Wallace’s words: “Understanding comes by choice, by opening your heart and mind toward God and the ways of God. Anyone who wants to understand and seeks God’s wisdom will understand. God promises enlightenment to those who seek Him.”

  “Is that it?” he asked himself. “Is that the answer, God? Have I been so confused about all these things because down deep I haven’t really wanted to understand? Have I resisted your truth?”

  Robbie pensively looked down over the valley spread out below him.

  “God . . . God,” he said at length, very softly but audibly, “I do want to understand. I do want to know the truth, and I want to live the truth. Please . . . help me. Show me the truth.”

  Still God continued to answer the quiet and sincere search of Robbie’s heart with voices from his past. Coombs had said, “Christianity has the one ingredient that makes all the difference, the one thing that makes it true in the face of all other insufficient attempts to know God and discover the essential meaning of life.” And Hsi-chen had simply said, “There is really only one question in life. It comes down to the Master Builder, to a life with a God who is personal and who is love. That’s what is so different about the Christian way, Robbie Taggart. The man Jesus makes everything different. Different and new.”

  The man Jesus . . .

  What was it about this man who lived so long ago that made all the difference?

  Coombs had called Him the true man . . . manhood defined. Robbie remembered how shocked he had been at the words. Jesus—that person whom so many took for a meek, soft-spoken weakling—is in reality the essence of what true manhood is all about! It was such an explosively new thought. How could it be? All his life Robbie had been seeking his manhood by being stronger and wiser and tougher and more vigorous than anyone else. By being a man’s man! Wasn’t that the essence of the seafaring life—outwitting one’s companions, the ship, the elements, the sea itself, and coming out on top, with one’s own strength? Robbie had been proud of his strength!

  Now was it all to be reversed? Was masculinity none of those things at all?

  Jesus, the true man . . . manhood defined. It was revolutionary! He had laid everything down, even His life. He had laid down strength of muscle. He had laid down position, fame, honor. He had been spit on, then executed. He had not lifted a finger to defend himself, uttered not a word in His own defense. Yet was this true manhood? The very opposite to what he had always thought! Was this true strength—strength, not of might, but of character; strength of value and purpose, not of wit or brawn; eternal strength, not temporary gain?

  Robbie pondered the life and person of Jesus more personally and sincerely than he ever had. He reflected on all he had read in Hsi-chen’s little black New Testament about the man. And gradually as he thought, the power of the life of Jesus began to steal over him. Here was indeed a life of strength, a life that had turned the world upside down by the very might of its central character. Here was a story where in a humiliating death was born the ultimate victory, where in laying down one’s life is one given more life, where in giving one receives, where the last are in fact first, where gain comes from serving. In the life of Jesus, indeed, all the world’s values had been turned upside down. What Robbie had all along been searching for as the ultimate requirements of manhood were in fact just the opposite.

  The manhood he had so long been seeking—true manhood—sprang from another source.

  For Robbie Taggart, his existence had always been wrapped up in his physical self, and in his self-sufficiency. To lay down what he had always held dear, to utter a simple expression of need, went cross-grain to all he had been.

  A scripture Wallace had read him two days ago came back to mind. “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” He was beginning to see a little of what it might mean. Yet what a bitter pill it was to have to admit that he, Robbie Taggart, was weak! Not just from the loss of a hand. That was weakness as the world judged it. But he was weak in every way—as a man, he had always been weak, inside, in his heart, but only now were his eyes opening to that fact. What an agony it was to accept that reality! He was not strong—not strong as Jesus was strong. He had no strength of compassion, no strength to lay down his life, no strength of eternal purpose. His whole life had been focused on a form of supposed manliness that was in truth no manliness at all! Never before had he seen or acknowledged his need of anything, of anyone. Now, it was all at once abundantly clear to him. Robbie Taggart was a man in need!

  He sat watching the farmers gather up their tools at day’s end, remembering a similar scene from weeks earlier, a field, like these he was gazing upon now, where two men had toiled—one a farmer, the other a missionary, a man of God.

  Robbie recalled his initial surprise at seeing Wallace thus engaged in backbreaking physical labor. He had seemed so out of his element. But did it not take more of a man to give assistance to his enemy than to wield an awkward Chinese hoe? Any man could be taught to hoe a field. But what a different kind of strength it took to lay down hostilities and embrace an enemy as a brother! Wallace had not praised Coombs for what Robbie had considered his courage in battling their foes, but what praise he would have received for returning love for their evil! Everything was backwards now! It might, in fact, take more courage—in the new sense—to admit his need before God and to relinquish his desire to stand on his own than to stumble through life in the power of his own strength.

  The first drops of rain brushed Robbie’s face: the storm would come earlier than expected. Robbie hoped the farmers were prepared. The winds and rains would strike the coast with wild fury, torrential rainfall and hundred-mile-an-hour gusts. By the time the storm reached Wukiang it would have abated to about half its original power. It would still be formidable, but the farmers would be ready, for they met with such weather from the heavens every year and knew how to prepare themselves for it. If only he had been as prepared for the violent blast that had touched his life. He had always thought himself immune from such things—tragedy is far away when one’s life consists of a happy-go-lucky grin, a gust of wind off the sea, and a merry jig in an earthy pub.

  At length the rain forced Robbie to his feet. He sighed deeply, then had to pause a moment to steady himself before walking on down the hill. It ser
ved as a reminder of his weakness, of the fact that things would never be the same again.

  52

  The Hillside Again

  It was dark when Robbie reached the mission compound. His clothing was wet through from the rain that had steadily increased as he had descended from his pensive hilltop perch.

  Passing the camphor tree, his eyes fell on the old, beat-up stump where he had worked so many days cutting shingles for the missing roofs. He hadn’t finished the job; he was sure Hsi-chen was already placing pails in key positions around the residence to catch the drips.

  Nor would he finish it. How could he now? He was incapacitated. He might be able to wield a hammer, but who would hold the nail? How would he climb up the ladder? How would he be able to cut more shingles? The nagging practical questions brought on by life with only one hand only heightened what he had known all along: he wasn’t a complete man now! He had lost that most visible symbol of manhood—his capacity to do things for himself!

  Robbie stopped. Someone had left the hammer out. He stooped to pick it up. After a moment he hefted it in his hand, then brought it down with a great dull thud against the stump.

  He threw his face up into the black sky and let the rain wash over it, unable even to say the words that always led the torrent of questions: Why did it happen to me?

  He did not say it, perhaps because he was finally beginning to realize the bitter answer: because he would not have listened in any other way. The Voice from heaven had been calling a long time, but he had closed his ears. He had refused, pretending such voices were only for other people. But the Heart behind the Voice was not one to give up so easily. Wallace had told him that God loved Robbie too much to let him escape. He loved Robbie so much He allowed this in order to get Robbie’s attention, to get him to look up, to get him to the place where he was able to accept that love. Ha! Robbie had thought. He took my hand because He loves me! That has got to be a divine joke of cruel magnitude!

  Perhaps Wallace had been right. Was it possible—incredible though such a notion would have been to the old, happy-go-lucky, independent Robbie Taggart. Incredible . . . but just possibly true. Could God love him that much? So much that no price was too small, that any sacrifice—even his hand—was worth waking Robbie up to that love?

  Maybe it wasn’t so much of a sacrifice, really. God had—so the story goes—lost a Son, given His Son, because His love was so great. Jesus had laid down, not a hand, not an arm, not a piece of himself, but His very life! He had died a cruel and unjust death because of that Love. He had willingly sacrificed himself to make that love come alive in the hearts of men.

  Maybe the loss of an arm wasn’t so great—if it did indeed awaken that love within him.

  He knew what Wallace would say. “One day, Robert, you’re going to give God thanks for allowing this to happen. Whenever you think of it you’re going to praise Him, because that’s how He showed you the depths of His love. That’s how He made real to you just how great was Jesus’ love.”

  Would that day ever come when he would count it a privilege to share in a tiny way in the sufferings of Jesus—for the sake of being opened more fully to His Father’s great love.

  Slowly he walked to his room adjacent to the hospital, and clumsily changing his wet clothes, he lay down on his bed. He knew he had missed the dinner hour. He had intentionally done so. During that afternoon he had begun to feel so close, so on the verge . . . of something, of a breakthrough, that he feared the distractions of people and food and talk might push it out of his reach. He stretched himself out, wishing he could sleep, but doubting he would. He lay for many hours, turning many things over and over in his mind, before finally dozing off a few hours before dawn.

  When he awoke it was still raining. Robbie remained in his room reading the New Testament Hsi-chen had given him. During the days of his recuperation from his near-fatal wound, he had spent most of his time studying that little book and had read it completely through twice, though so much still remained a mystery to him.

  Occasionally he had asked questions of the mission folk. But during his recovery Robbie had been unusually taciturn, withdrawn, speaking little despite the frequent visits from everyone. And still he felt more comfortable alone, wandering over the fields and hills when the weather permitted, or keeping to his room. The others seemed to respect this need for solitude and had made few demands on him.

  The light knock he now heard on his door was a rare intrusion. He closed his book, rose from the bed, and opened it. There stood Wallace.

  “We missed you last night—and this morning,” he said simply. “I was concerned.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You are still recovering from a serious drain to your system. As your doctor, I need to make sure you get adequate nourishment.”

  “I just haven’t felt very social.”

  “I understand. Solitude is sometimes as healing as a meal.” Robbie knew Wallace did understand. It was clear from his tone, and in the depth of his eyes. Robbie had come to see the doctor in a new light. For the first time he was able to see through what he had taken for surface harshness, into the spirit of the man. “Please,” continued the missionary, “may I conduct a brief examination—as a precaution?”

  Robbie nodded in reply and sat on the edge of the bed. Wallace opened a leather bag and withdrew a thermometer and stethoscope. He pressed the stethoscope against his patient’s chest and listened for several moments while he placed the thermometer in his mouth.

  Several moments of necessary silence passed; then Wallace removed the thermometer and peered at it.

  “Well, everything seems in order,” he said. “I’ll have to redress the bandage on your arm, probably tomorrow.”

  Robbie nodded. It was the most distasteful part of his recovery.

  Wallace packed up his instruments, but before leaving laid a fatherly hand on Robbie’s shoulder.

  “All of us here at the mission will respect your desire for solitude,” he said. “But I want you to know that when the time for solitary musings comes to an end, my heart and my ears are open to you. A man often needs to verbalize his feelings to another man. The Word of God says, ‘Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.’ Christ himself often sought out solitary places, yet the core of His ministry remained with people. This is a lengthy way of saying that you must not shun completely the fellowship of your companions here at the mission. You need not feel constrained to come to me—Thomas, or my daughter, or any of the others will happily receive you as well.”

  “I’ll remember that. I appreciate it Doctor.”

  It rained persistently all that day and into the evening. By the following morning the clouds had begun to break up and the storm had degenerated into a damp, dank heat. The moment the hot, misting rain ceased that afternoon Robbie was back out-of-doors. Though he did so by choice, he was not essentially cut out for musing alone in a tiny room for days on end. The wind, the sky, the trees, the hills, the air, the smells of the fields—all called to his spirit, saying, “Come to me, let me teach you and heal you and refresh your spirit!”

  He breathed in a deep draught of the stifling afternoon air, and it tingled through his body. It made him feel richly alive. He looked up to see Hsi-chen approaching him with a small tray of food.

  How he wanted to talk to her—really talk, as they used to. She had been most respectful of his solitude. She had been shy and reticent around him, and at first he had imagined the cause to be his lost hand. He feared that he repelled her. But now he realized that such could never be the case with Hsi-chen. Instead it had been he who had backed off in their relationship, and she was merely waiting, biding her time until he was again able to open up to her.

  The very moment Robbie had dashed off to rescue her from Wang, he knew it was more than friendship that had spurred on his irrational attempt. He loved her. He knew that now. Though the very words ached within him, they were true. But he could no
t face such emotions at present. Perhaps when everything else was resolved . . .

  It took every bit of power within him to exercise restraint on this present occasion, to smile in that friendly but detached manner, to exchange those few meaningless words of gratitude. How he wanted to pour out his heart to her, to give his heart to her, to take her in his arms and hold her. Yet that unguarded thought caused him to cast an involuntary glance at his empty cuff, and suddenly all he wanted to do was get away.

  He took the tray back into his room after their brief meeting, though her sweet presence still lingered with him.

  He could not eat now. Once he had given her time to return to the residence, he again exited the hospital building, this time walking toward the village. He reached the bridge of the Chai-chiang when he saw Wallace returning from talking to a shopkeeper. Instinctively, Robbie’s initial reaction was to turn on his heels and head back in the other direction.

  Suddenly Wallace’s words of the previous morning came back to him. The pounding of his heart told him that perhaps he was running from people now, not merely seeking helpful solitude. Maybe the moment had come. Maybe it was now time to look beyond himself for a resolution. And if that were so, Robbie knew it was to Wallace he must go, because it was Wallace all along whom he had most feared. In a symbolic sense, this is where it began, and perhaps it might now end with the missionary as well.

  So Robbie walked deliberately forward. The doctor smiled in greeting, seeming to know the younger man’s thoughts without anything needing to be said. On the village side of the river they met. Wallace threw a strong, gentle arm around Robbie’s shoulder, and they headed slowly upstream along a secluded path that skirted the edge of the village.