LESSONS ON FAITH AND PRAYER FROM HUDSON TAYLOR

Do you ever have days or seasons where you struggle in prayer, faith, and perseverance? I confess that I do. What do you do when they arrive at the doorstep of your soul? I am so thankful for the means of grace that God has provided to strengthen me, gain perspective, and rise above my trials. Whenever I am battling with my faith I pull my bible and Christian biographies out of my arsenal to fan my faith back into flame. I encourage you to do the same.

I call these biographies my friends because they come alongside of me and urge me to fight, run, pray, and persevere (Hebrews 12:1; 13:7). I make it a habit to regularly pay my dear friends a visit. One of my favorite friends to visit is Hudson Taylor (Born at Barnsley (18 miles south. of Leeds), Yorkshire, England, May 21, 1832; died at Changsha (340 miles north of Canton), China, June 3, 1905) the first missionary to the interior of China and founder of the China Inland Mission (Called today OMF).

Taylor challenges me more than anything than in the areas faith and prayer. His philosophy was that "He must move men through God -- by prayer’. That he did so successfully and miraculously makes for some of the most exciting reading in church history.

One of the great stories of his life is that after his call Taylor first moved from the comforts of his home with his parents and two sisters in beautiful Barnsley of Yorkshire to Drainside, Hull, a poverty-stricken, depressing area named after and notarized by its foul ditch. Taylor had gone there purposely to work for a doctor and accumulate a little medical knowledge, and also to accustom himself to something of the loneliness and dangers of living in a strange land where his only companion would be God.

It was at Drainside Taylor learned one can trust God with his last cent. He had been called out late one night to witness to and pray over a sick woman with starving children. As he tried to pray, his words choked in his mouth because he had in his possession a silver coin that would answer his prayer and alleviate their sufferings somewhat. He did not want to let go of that coin! So he tried to rationalize and justify holding on to it. Meanwhile he was praying for God to provide for the poor family (I love this. It sounds so much like me at times). "Hypocrite!" he heard his heart condemn him. "Telling people about a kind and loving Father in Heaven -- and not prepared to trust Him yourself, without your money!" Taylor experienced a time of inner conflict that he had never known before but still would not let go of the coin to help this family. The husband of the woman asked Taylor after he fumbled through his prayer: “If you can help us, for God’s sake do it.” Just then a word flashed through Taylor’s mind, “Give to Him who asks of you.” He gave them his last coin, only one bowl of porridge between him and poverty! As he ate that last meal he remembered the Scripture, "He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord" (Proverbs 19:17).

The next day he received a package. In it was a gold coin worth ten times the silver coin. Taylor cried out triumphantly, "That's good interest! Ha! Ha! Invested in God's bank for twelve hours and it brings me this! That's the bank for me!" Taylor’s life was radically impacted by the lessons he learned. “I cannot tell you how often my mind has recurred to this incident, or all the help that it has been to me in circumstances of difficulty in my life. If we are faithful to God in the little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life.”

So at nineteen years of age, Taylor learned he could trust and obey God in every area of his life. “It is always helpful to us to fix attention on the Godward aspect of Christian work; to realize that the work of God does not mean so much man’s work for God, as God’s work through man.”

Taylor reminds me that God is the decisive worker in the Christian life!
1 Corinthians 15:10, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
1 Peter 4:10-11, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies- in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

Another great lesson he learned was how a man can simply take God at His Word. At fifteen years of age Taylor had become disappointed, disillusioned, and bored with his life. He found the religious life of his parents very dull, although he attended church very dutifully with them. He really desired horses, hunting, and luxuries. Alone at home one day he looked for something to read in his father’s library. He picked up a gospel tract and began to read it. At the very same moment seventy miles away his mother was earnestly praying for her son's salvation (His sister had been praying for him a s well). At the very same time and on that same day Taylor prayed his first prayer and it was answered. He was converted to Christ!

Praying to God and God answering prayer; became the passion of his life. He learned to move men alone through God by prayer. He asked no man for any material thing. Like George Mueller, he laid all needs before his Lord.

There was a doctor he had worked for at Drainside that sometimes forgot when it was pay day for his assistant. Because of that, he himself had suggested to his young assistant, "Taylor, please do remind me when it is time to pay your salary. I'm so busy, you know, I'm quite likely to forget." And forget he did. But Taylor remembered that in China he would have no one to ask anything of, only God, so he simply asked God to remind the doctor.

Three weeks later the doctor remembered and came by to visit. Taylor was elated that his bills would be paid (I cannot tell you how many times I have experienced similar putting my hopes in man!), But when the doctor came by and told Taylor he remembered, he also told Taylor that he remembered only after he had banked his money. Taylor was devastated! He was broke. It was Saturday. He had no money to pay his rent. He had no money for food. As soon as the doctor left He began tearfully and anxiously pouring his heart out to God for some time until peace, calmness, thankfulness, and joy were restored by prayer and communion with the God of comfort (2 Corinthians 1:1). He believed that God was not going to fail him. Taylor felt that , “God had had His own way…and now was going to work for me in some other way.”

He prayed as he worked until ten o'clock, glad he would not have to face his landlady. As he prepared to leave, the doctor surprised him, "What do you think? One of my patients has just come to pay his bill! He's one of my richest patients and he could have paid me by check anytime. Yet, there he is, bringing in the money at ten o'clock on Saturday night." Then he added, "By the way, Taylor, you might as well take these notes. I have no change, but I can give you the balance of your salary next week ... Good night!"

Taylor's prayers were answered. He could not only pay his rent, he had money in hand for weeks ahead -- but more than that, he had proven again: God answers prayer and moves men. He wanted to prove in his life the willingness of God to answer prayers of spiritual blessing under the most unpromising circumstances and “thus to gain an increased acquaintance with the prayer answering God as one mighty to save”.

Taylor went on to live this testimony of faith in China. There were storms at sea and miraculous deliverance's in that five-and-one-half months' journey to China. When he landed God encouraged him to bring every variety of need to Him in prayer, and to expect that "He would honor the name of Jesus Christ and give the help that each emergency required.”

There was civil war when he landed at Shanghai, rebels holding the city. Fires, famine, fearsome circumstances were fought by the young missionary on his knees and God delivered him. His faith was rock solidly grounded in the scriptures and the absolute sovereign purposes of God. Oh what lessons we can learn from him in how we face adversity, disappointments, and suffering. He writes,

“the great enemy is always ready with his often repeated suggestion, all these things are against me, but oh how false the word. The cold, the hunger, the watching’s, the sleeplessness, the nights of danger, the feelings at times of utter isolation and helplessness were well and wisely chosen, and lovingly and tenderly meted out. What circumstances could have rendered the Word of God sweeter, and the presence of God so real, and the help of God so precious?”


I love reading how consistent Taylor was in depending upon God in prayer and then seeing answers. One time he prayed about provision and writes, “I looked to my Father as able to supply all of my need God and received another token of His ceaseless love.’

Taylor can encourage us in how to face our darkest times of trial. When faced with grave circumstances his attitude was “I know not how the God I served would help me but that I had no doubt that He would do so, and that my business now was to serve Him where I am.”

He struggled with faith as a man just like we all do. “My faith has often failed, and I was sorry and ashamed that I failed to trust such a father.” But Hudson Taylor was encouraged that even in weakness of unbelief, “When we fail to trust Him fully. He still remains unchangeably faithful. He is wholly true whether we trust Him or not…Oh how we dishonor our Lord when we fail to trust Him, and what peace, blessing, and triumph we loose in sinning against the truthful One! May we never presume to doubt Him” at such revelation of the Father’s faithfulness.”

He reminds us why we have difficulties and problems in our lives as Christians:

“Not infrequently our God brings His people into difficulties on purpose that they may come to know him as they could not otherwise do . Then He reveals Himself as a very present help in trouble and makes the heart glad indeed.”

Taylor ministered in the river towns, married a wife and saw many miracles in converted Chinese. But on June 25, 1865, he made his move to minister to the millions of China "West of the Mountains, South of the Clouds, North of the Lake"--Inland China. At Brighton, England, on furlough, he opened a bank account: "Ten pounds" (Fifty dollars) in the name of "The China Inland Mission." His initial goal was twenty-four workers. The next May the twenty-four sailed. Then there were seventy more. And another hundred. And finally more than eight hundred missionaries ministered across the far-flung miles of China's interior. Truly this man of faith and fortitude had mastered in the ministry of moving men through God by prayer.

J. Hudson Taylor died in 1905, before the communist takeover of his beloved China. His days were days of extensive and effective evangelism. Multitudes of converted Chinese will rise up in Heaven and call him blessed and many Christian workers whose lives were challenged and changed by the contagious Christian character of Taylor will follow in their train.

I long in my life for the simple, bible-centered, God trusting, childlike faith of this dear man. “Has not God said that whatever we ask in the Name of the Lord Jesus shall be done? And are we not told to seek first the kingdom of God, not the means to advance it (I.e. money), and that all of these things shall be added to us? Such promises are surely sufficient.” “In the study of that divine Word of God I learned that, to obtain successful laborers, not elaborate appeals for help, but first, earnest prayers to God to thrust forth such laborers…I have no doubt , that, if I prayed fr workers in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would be given to me. I had no doubt that in answer to such prayer that the means for our going forth would be provided, and that doors would be opened.”

Praying for the grace to consider and imitate the faith of Hudson Taylor,
Pastor Bill