Lessons from the Past

I don't make New Years Resolutions largely because I can't keep them. However this year I am going to make a concerted effort to read more Christian biographies and autobiographies. I began on holiday by reading A Man in Christ a biography of Hudson Taylor. I have found it profoundly challenging on a number of levels.

I think however that first and foremost it challenges the comfort in which we live and serve. For us it is a shock if someone dies young, when we send out missionaries we do not expect them or their family members to die as children or in their prime. But it was common place for Hudson Taylor and others. Their approach to such loss has also been a challenge - am I too wedded to this world. Upon the death of his beloved daughter Gracie aged 8 of Meningitis Taylor is able to praise God for taking her home. In fact that realisation of glory is what sustains the family in the midst of each of their losses, heaven is tangible for them.

Is it tangible for us? Am I too wedded to this world?

It has also been interesting to note the opposition Hudson Taylor faced often from within the church, and the godly way he dealt with it. As well as his desire to see others trained up and sent as missionaries, specifically looking for and training young men and women to go take the gospel to the Chinese. We need to look and learn from such a man in so many ways.

But I think what stands out most is his godliness, his concern for God's concerns namely the lost. May God give us something of his burden for the lost we rub shoulders with every day.