By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
(ANS) -- James Hudson Taylor, the
pioneering missionary who opened inland China to the Gospel, had a
remarkable experience with God that brought newfound peace and
unsurpassed joy to his ministry. And it happened in a most unexpected
way.
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Hudson Taylor
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"Those were
days when scarcely a station in China was opened without danger to life
itself. Riots were so usual that they seemed almost part of the
proceedings," wrote Taylor's second son, Howard, in the classic book,
"Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret." (Moody Publishers)
As
his burdens increased, Hudson penned this in a letter to his mother,
"At times I seem almost overwhelmed with the internal and external
trials connected with our work."
The
inward struggle seemed to echo the Apostle Paul's in Romans 7. "I
cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by temptation. I never knew
how bad a heart I have," Taylor wrote.
"Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power," he wrote to his sister. "Must
it be thus to the end - constant conflict, and too often defeat?"
"Instead
of growing stronger, I seem to be getting weaker and to have less power
against sin," he confessed. "I hated myself, I hated my sin, yet gained
no strength against it."
The
more he strove after holiness, the more it seemed to elude his grasp. As
he considered the grace lavished on him by Jesus, Taylor's guilt and
helplessness increased. "Unbelief was I felt the damning sin of the
world, yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What
was I to do?"
But then, 15
years after he first set foot in China, God reached down and touched his
heart in such a powerful way it changed the course of his future
ministry. The transformative moment came as Taylor perused a letter from
a fellow missionary, John McCarthy.
See all ASSIST News articles at www.assistnews.net
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