Faith Often Looks Foolish

Stephanie started reading a biography on Hudson Taylor entitled, "Hudson Taylor - The Growth of a Soul" late last spring and the Lord has used it powerfully as a faith-builder in her heart as well as in ours as a family. One excerpt that she shared with us from her reading has continued to be especially helpful. As a young boy, Hudson Taylor was taught well by his Father that God never lies, that it is always right to take God fully at his word, and that he should treat God's great promises in scripture as fact. In this excerpt, Taylor is preparing for the work God called Him to, and he goes to a minister in his native town to borrow a book on China. The older minister questions Taylor's sensibility and you can see in Taylor an unshakable trust in the promises of God revealed in his matter-of-fact response:

"This he (the minister) kindly granted (the book), inquiring why I wished to read it. I told him that God had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land.
'And how do you propose to go there?' he inquired.
I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judea, go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had sent me to supply all my need.
Kindly placing his hand on my shoulder, the minister replied, 'Ah, my boy, as you grow older you will become wiser than that. Such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ himself was on earth, but not now.'
I have grown older since then, but not wiser. I am more and more convinced that if we were to take the directions of our Master and the assurance He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given."