The Greatest Lesson I Ever Learned - Brian Booth

As I entered full-time ministry in 1995 I read a book compiled by Dr Bill Bright entitled, "The Greatest Lesson I Ever Learned". It was a collection of stories from Christian leaders. It inspired me to ask various Christian leaders in Australia that I knew (or, mostly, knew of) for their story. These have been sitting in my computer for 10 years waiting for publication, but I didn't collect enough to warrant publishing them. So, I am now posting them as blogs so the stories can get out there. I trust you enjoy them as much as I do.

Geoff

Brian Booth

Brian Booth is one of Australia’s most successful sportsmen. He represented Australia in the gold winning hockey team in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and played for Australia in cricket - including the Ashes tour in 1960s.

Brian was a secondary school teacher until his retirement.

He takes an active interest in developing young Christians in their sport and their faith. He also assists with the Christian Businessmen’s meetings in Sydney.

THE CANCELLED DEBT

It was the Olympic Year - 1956.

I had been invited to tour New Zealand with a New South Wales Hockey team. I was keen to go as I had never been outside Australia before. Also the experience would be valuable for the Australian Championships to be held in Melbourne later in the year, when the Australian Olympic Hockey Team was to be selected. This was the first time Australia would be represented at Olympic level in Men’s Hockey. What an honour it would be if selected as a member of the “Original Team”? However, I could not afford to go, as I was committed to monthly re-payments on my first motor car ( a two door Morris Minor), and as a teacher I would be on leave without pay.

My father came to the rescue. He dipped deep into his meager savings and loaned me the money needed for air-fares. I resolved to pay him back when my finances improved. I made the tour, played in the Australian Championships and was selected in Australia's first Olympic Men's Hockey Team. I was a member of the “Originals”.

Months passed. The debt to my father was still unpaid. It nagged at me. I always seemed to have other financial priorities. A year went by. I knew that Mum and Dad were struggling financially. My father was a farmer - and a good one. He knew how to make things grow - especially cauliflowers, but market prices for vegetables were very low and fluctuated week by week. I made the re-payment of the debt a priority.

It was with a sense of relief that I drove to my parents' home at Perthville, near Bathurst, for the Christmas school vacation. In my wallet was the cheque for my father. The amount was a little more than he had loaned me, but I was glad that at long last the outstanding debt would be paid.

I arrived home and immediately handed my father the cheque.
“What's this?” he asked.
“It's a cheque” I replied.
“Yes. I know it's a cheque, but what's it for?” said my father.
“It's for the money you loaned me a year ago for the New Zealand trip”, I answered.

My father paused for a moment and then tore the cheque in half. I stared open mouthed in disbelief. Not being a “financial genius” my immediate thought was that he had literally destroyed the amount on the cheque. Seeing my uneasiness, my father looked me in the eye, smiled and handed me the pieces of paper.

I thought long and hard about this incident. As a trained teacher and through my experience of the “ups and downs” of cricket and hockey, I had learned to ask such questions as “What happened?”, “Why did it happen?” but more importantly, “What could I learn from the situation?”

As a boy I had spent considerable time with my father. He taught me many valuable lessons. Sometimes he had to get to the “seat of the problem” to make sure the lesson was understood. I had often scored a “hundred in the back yard at Mums” under his experienced observation. He had taught me much about respect for the hard work that went into earning it. But why had my father torn up that cheque? He was not a wealthy man. Relative poverty was the pattern of my parents' living, as it was for most of the people living around the village of Perthville at the time. What lesson did he want me to learn this time?

As I reflected on what my father had done, I realised that his practical action of tearing up the cheque finalised the matter. He had cancelled my debt. That money was now a free gift. I sensed his motivation was that I was his son and that he loved me. Yes, my father was a farmer and he knew how to make things grow, but he also knew how to make people grow, especially his own son! It was from his action that I learned the important lesson that “people matter more than things”. Yes, even more than money!

However, that was not the only lesson I learned from my father's action. At the time I was young and inexperienced in the Christian faith. In a far deeper sense it made me realise that when Jesus died on the Cross He cancelled my debt of sin. In the Bible, sin is not so much doing wrong as being wrong. In cricket terms it means being short of the crease, batting down the wrong line or falling short of a standard. God’s standard is Jesus Christ. I knew I fell far short of that standard. It was a debt I could never re-pay. Jesus tore up my debt of sin just as my father had torn up my financial debt. As the hymn writer says, “He (Jesus) paid the debt and made me free”, and in return offered me the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life

The most important lesson I learned, however, from my father tearing up the cheque was that eternal life is not a matter of money, luck or chance. It is a matter of choice - of taking God at His Word and resting in utter confidence on his promises.

When Jesus said, “God did not send His Son into the world to make its people guilty but He sent Him to rescue them”, He meant it. He meant that Jesus cancelled our debt for all time, not because we deserve it or because of what we had done, but because of His love and what He had done. That's God's grace to you and me.