This week on Things Unseen, we've been thinking about people who have been special gifts of God to us, in the way they've helped us come to faith and then grow from being babes in Christ into at least spiritually speaking young men and women.

And I've been talking about some of these people yesterday about a man dressed in black.

I want to mention another man. He had the very Scottish name of Hamish.

I met him through some friends in the church I went to as a teenager. They were

all slightly older than I was and took me with them to various Christian meetings and introduced

me to their Christian friends too. I know some of them prayed for me to become a believer,

and I'm grateful for the way they introduced me naturally to the

wonder of Christian fellowship. Because like all young Christians, I was a little like the

pilgrim in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I needed older companions and their wisdom,

people who were already on the way. And one of these was Hamish.

I've actually had more than one friend called Hamish,

but this was someone I got to know when I was still in my mid-teens

and a relatively young Christian.

At the time, I'd no idea what age Hamish was

when you're 15 or 16,

anyone who's working five days a week and drawing a salary

is by definition almost ancient.

But anyway, Hamish took an interest in me and talked to me about spiritual things, as I'm sure

he did to others.

I don't think he would have minded it if I said he was an unusual person. And looking back, I remember

he wasn't a Presbyterian. He belonged to a non-denominational church. I don't know if he'd ever

heard the expression, reformed theology. And he encouraged me to read books that were popular

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