The Wisdom of Saints

An Old Saint Still Speaks Across the Years

Hudson Taylor was born in 1837 and died in 1905.During his life he became a missionary to China and he founded the China Inland Mission (C.I.M.)  There is not one single record of Hudson Taylor asking a single soul for help in funding his great service for the Lord. He did not need to have any great entourage surrounding him with security; he had no financial standing. He simply stated his needs to God and trusted Him for provision of all he needed. Yet the legacy of all that he worked for and achieved is still bearing fruit today throughout that great land.

I was recently on holiday and I read a little bit about the great man of God. He had four simple tenets of faith – you might say he saw faith from four aspects.

Faith rests on God’s faithfulness

Hudson Taylor wrote a simple statement when he urged us to “Reckon on the faithfulness of God.” If God is not faithful to His Word, how can He expect us to have faith?

Faith is the trust of a child

He wrote this, “I am taking my children with me, and I notice that it is not difficult for me to remember that the little ones need breakfast in the mornings, dinner at midday, and something before they go to bed at night. Indeed I could not forget it and I find it impossible to suppose that our Heavenly Father is less tender and mindful than I.”

He also wrote this, “I do not believe that our Heavenly Father will ever forget His children. I am a very poor father but it is not my habit to forget my children. God is a very, very good Father. It is not His habit to forget His children.”

Faith like that of a child is the only way we can describe Hudson Taylor’s attitude to provision. All provision comes from God. He knows our needs before we ask. When we were children, we didn’t worry about where the food on our tables came from. We just knew it would be there at the appropriate time and place for us to eat. When we grew bigger and needed new clothes, we didn’t worry about where they came from or rather where the money for them came from. We just went with our parents to buy them. Just as we trusted our parents for these things, how much more can we trust our Father in Heaven to supply us?

Faith is as necessary to the material realm as it is to the spiritual

We can believe God as much for the finance to buy our food, as for the food itself, and for the plate, knife and fork with which to eat it. When the Israelites entered the desert to begin their wanderings, money had not even been invented so when God provided for them, He provided physical things like water, food, grazing for their flocks, and so on. Just as Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom, so the Lord provided wisdom plus all the physical trappings of power and wealth. We can expect God to answer our prayers for the spiritual gifts and for the physical things we need in life in order to fulfil His plans and destiny for our lives.

Faith is not incompatible with the use of means

A drowning man would be foolish to reject the use of a life jacket and just rely on God would he not? If the means of our need is at hand we should use them.

So, I think we can all still learn from the saints of yesteryear. For me, these four short sentences are a statement of faith that I can live with. They are simple, almost child-like, just as the second one says that faith is that of a child. Hudson Taylor left more than a legacy for China. He left all of us a great legacy in his “four facets of faith”.