To whom do you share the credit for your labour?

I figure we all must have someone, each and everyone of us. If we were raised in a godly home with godly parents than maybe you need look no further than thier nurture and raising you in the faith that you now posses.

For John Calvin it was Maturin Cordier.  And he wrote him this letter:

It is only right that you too should have a share in my labours, seeing that under your direction, hen i had at the first undertaken a course of study, I advanced at least to the point of bieng abel to be of some use to the Church of God. when my father sent me to Paris as a boy, having nothing but a few scanty rudiments of the Latin language, it pleased God that I should meet you as my tutor for a short time, so that I should be so well trained by you in the true road and in the right way of learning that afterwards I might be able to profit by it. for although you had charge of the first class and taught it with great honour, nevertheless, because ou could see that children, when formed by other teachers prompted by ambition and mere bravado, were not soundly based and achieved nothing of real worth, but had merely a few whiffs of knowledge to put on some sort of show so that you had to begin all over again to fashion them anew, being angry at having to take so much trouble over the matter, you came down yourself with that particualr year to deal with the fourth class…to have such a beginning in my education was for me a singular blessing from God. And although I was not permitted to enjoy this for long, becuse a scatter brained fellow without any discretion, who controlled our studies as he wished (or rather as his mad imagination dictated) made us forthwith go up higher, nevertheless the teaching and the direction that yuo had given me served me so well from that time onwards that I recognize and admit, as is only just, that I had from you must of the profit and help which came later. Of this fact I have wished to bear testimony to thse who shall come after us, so that, if my writings are of anyuse to them, they may know that this is in part due to you."

When Calvin wrote the above, it is unlikely had any knowledge or foresight of just what his labours would achieve, but Calvin always remained a humble man at heart, even addressing Luther as his "father in the faith,"  and I don't believe at the close of his life, Calvin would view the input of Maturin Cordier shaping his beliefs and practices in those early years, as any less significant and any less sharing in part or sharing in the credit of those labours,  than when he wrote that letter.

Maybe it was your family, maybe it was an early church experience for you. With a good, solid, teaching  pastor, but we almost always have someone who shapes us in the ways ahove. When I write in other places, people often hear me allude to one faithful friend, and  any overcoming I do now, in the degree of affliction I am under,  any achieving I do in trying to spread truth or promote the teachings of the puritans and covenanters and Reformation prinicples,  they have a share in that, as much as Maturin Cordier did for Calvin. I never name them,  because I don't think they would want me to,  but they knew who they are, as does their family,  and I came not like Calvin with bad teachings in the way of church, from bad teachers, but steeped in the world of thinking  the way the psyche system had taught me in every aspect and sphere in life, which is diametrically opposed to faith in most instances. I came with a handful of predjudices about Christians in general, and lots of other things that were stumbling blocks to getting to the truth,  but  the truth I have now, the convictions, the way I can rise above my circumstances, in even the worst of,  like Calvin was shaped and fashioned by Maturin Cordier, I was the same by another.  And anything I achieve, or any overcoming,  the first honour must always go to God, for providing those people to teach us, but also,  we must also share any achievements or accomplishments we have as Christians, with whoever took the raw human being in all its frailty and weaknesses, and started to fashion it and shape it towards truth, and remember, that if not but for God giving us that one person whoever it was for you and for me, we would not achieve a thing, or rise above anything.   Anything we do achieve, almost always, the credit for it, is at least shared by that first person whomever they were for you, and whoever it was for me, that put you on the road to walk heavenwards,  and so we have not one reason to feel proud of our own achievements or accomplishments, because without a heck of a lot of help, from that first  early guide, none of us would achieve anything, and would most likely still be wallowing about in the mire,  wallowing in sin and carless about eternity.  WE always owe whatever we become in part to another.  First of all to God of course, but also to those people God placed in our lives, who denied themselves often,  so that we may have a chance to walk on the holy highway.  And knowing that, should prevent us from feeling any pride in our achievements or accomplishments.  Because God provided us all with someone to guide us, often at times, when we were blind as bats and rebels to boot.  Which hardly gives us anything to feel proud of ourselves about, as God got through to us,  because of those early guides, despise ourselves most often.   Even great Christans like Calvin, had someone he felt shared in his labours,  and if truth be told, I doubt there is not one of us who can say different to that either.