Can you plod? Let’s do it in 2008.
I've just received a New Year's Newsletter with the title above from a missionary working in Burundi in very difficult circumstances who gave this challenge for 2008.
He wrote of William Carey, the ‘Father of Modern Missions’ who was born in a desperately poor family and so had a terrible education. He was apprenticed as a shoemaker, but did not make the grade; he tried to run a school, but it functioned badly. His marriage was a deeply unhappy one, and his daughter died early in infancy. He was a deeply committed believer, but his attempts at pastoring a small church hindered his chances of ordination because by common consent his sermons were too tedious and boring!
In spite of this, Carey formed a missionary society with himself as the first candidate and set sail for India. This feeble individual translated the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese and Sanscrit, as well as portions into 29 other languages! Once he lost 10 years’ translation work in a fire – he just started again. This is not to mention other contributions in literature, education, agriculture, getting infanticide outlawed ...
Before he died, knowing people would want to write about him, he wrote the following:
“If one should think it worth his while to write my life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he gives me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”
I want to be a faithful plodder this year.
Suzy