Air travel has brought great change to modern missions. Missionaries can now fly from one side of the world to the other in a single day. But if you go back 150 to 200 years, it was quite different. When Hudson Taylor left Liverpool, England on his way to China, he expected his voyage by ship to last almost six months. With that kind of travel in mind, it made it that much more painful to leave his widowed mother. Listen to his description of that day.
My beloved, now sainted, mother had come to see me off from Liverpool. Never shall I forget that day, nor how she went with me into the little cabin that was to be my home for nearly six long months. With a mother’s loving hand she smoothed the little bed. She sat by my side, and joined me in the last hymn that we should sing together before the long parting. We knelt down, and she prayed – the last mother’s prayer I was to hear before starting for China. Then notice was given that we must separate, and we had to say good-bye, never expecting to meet on earth again.
For my sake she restrained her feelings as much as possible. We parted; and she went on shore, giving me her blessing! I stood alone on deck, and she followed the ship as we moved toward the dock gates. As we passed through the gates, and the separation really commenced, I shall never forget the cry of anguish wrung from that mother’s heart. It went through me like a knife. I never knew fully, until then, what “God so loved the world” meant. And I am quite sure that my precious mother learned more of the love of God to the perishing in that hour than in all her life before. (From Experiencing God by Blackaby and King, Lifeway Press, Nashville, TN, 2007, pp. 170-171)
Hudson Taylor knew what it meant to sacrifice for Christ. But He also knew that serving God had blessings that would far outweigh his sacrifice. By the time of his death in 1905, the China Inland Mission that he started had seen 125,000 Chinese people become believers. His sacrifice literally changed eternity for thousands of people. What are you willing to sacrifice in service to your Savior?
His,
Pastor Martin
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