“It Is Settled”

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” — from Isaiah 6

When John was a young man, he went to the big city of Chicago to study to be a minister. A year later his brother Edmund came to study there too. Edmund had promised God that he would go to a faraway country as a missionary, if God allowed it.

One summer Edmund went out west to Montana to help with Sunday school work. There he caught a bad fever. He was so ill that people pinned his train ticket to his coat so that he could get home. He reached home, but a few days later, in August 1891, he died. John was very sad.

Now John began to wonder. Edmund had wanted to be a missionary, and now he could not go. Did God want John to go instead? John did not rush to decide. He thought about it for most of a year.

Late one Saturday night, John went to a friend’s room. He asked his friend to give him all the reasons for going and for staying. But his friend would not argue. He told John to go to his own room, get on his knees before God, and stay there until the question was settled.

So John did. Nobody knows how long he prayed that night. But the next morning at chapel he found his friend and said, “It is settled.” His face was shining. He would go.

In 1892 John became a minister, and his church sent him to the Punjab, in the north of India. On 15 October 1892 he sailed from New York. He was twenty-six years old.

Sometimes we have a big question and we don’t know what to do. It is good to ask wise people for help. But some questions are best taken to God. You can tell him all about it, wait quietly, and trust him to show you the way.

Dear God, when I don’t know what to do, help me to come and talk to you. I want to say, like John, “Here I am. Send me.” Amen.