Man Proposes, God Disposes

A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. PROVERBS 16:9

One chapter of A Retrospect bears the old proverb Man Proposes, God Disposes as its title, and it could stand over much of Hudson Taylor’s life. His guidance rarely came as a clear inner voice. More often it came through closed doors, spoiled plans and apparent disasters that only made sense afterwards. He learned most about guidance by being disappointed.

A chain of calamities

In the summer of 1856 Taylor was settled with William Burns in Swatow, with a promising opening for medical work. He went back to Shanghai to fetch his medicines and instruments, meaning to return within weeks. He found the building where they were stored burnt down and the medicines destroyed. He set out for Ningbo to replace them, and on the way his servant ran off with everything he owned. He reached Shanghai again, exhausted and penniless, and was about to leave for Swatow when news came that war had broken out, and missionary work in the south was largely suspended. Burns had meanwhile been arrested and sent to Canton. The door was shut.

Taylor admits that at the time he was more disposed to say with Jacob, All these things are against me, than to believe that all things work together for good. He had not yet learned, he says, to think of God as “the One Great Circumstance,” in whom we live and move and have our being, and of all lesser circumstances as necessarily the kindest, wisest and best, because either ordered or permitted by Him.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ROMANS 8:28

The result of that chain of calamities was that he settled in Ningbo. There he met Maria Dyer, there the first church he gathered was formed, and there the pattern of the future mission took shape. The detour was the road.

A long illness

The same thing happened on a larger scale in 1860. When his health collapsed and he had to return to England, it seemed, he says, a great calamity: the Ningbo work was more fruitful than ever, and the young church needed him. Doctors told him he could not go back for years. Only later did he see that the separation was a necessary step towards something greater. In the field, the pressure of needs around him had left no room to think about the vast interior. In England, facing the map on his study wall, he was as near to the unreached provinces as to the district where he had worked, and prayer was often the only relief for his burdened heart.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. ISAIAH 55:8

Taylor introduces that section of A Retrospect with the lines of Cowper’s hymn: Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain. That was his settled view. We do not see enough to judge God’s providences as they happen. We see enough to trust Him.

Spreading the letters before the Lord

For day-to-day guidance Taylor’s method was simple. He brought the question to God, waited, and then acted on the best light he had. In Unfailing Springs he describes the terrible summer of 1870, when after the massacre at Tianjin letters came almost daily from workers asking whether to stay at their stations or leave. He did not know what to advise. But in each case, he says, “like Hezekiah, I spread the letters before the Lord, and trusted Him to teach me how to reply to them.”

And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. 2 KINGS 19:14

“There was no conscious revelation,” he writes. He received no voice, no vision, no special feeling. But in every instance he was guided to reply in the way that led to the best results, and he sent each letter off in peace, knowing he had asked and that God had given the wisdom that directs.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. JAMES 1:5

This is an unglamorous account of guidance, and a helpful one. Many Christians wait for a sense of certainty before they act, and are paralysed when it does not come. Taylor asked, trusted, and used his judgement, believing that God would guide a mind yielded to Him even when he could not feel it.

Faith and means

One of the most valuable lessons in A Retrospect concerns a swimming-belt. On his first voyage in 1853, the ship was caught in a gale in the Irish Sea and seemed certain to be wrecked. To please his mother Taylor had bought a swimming-belt, but as a young believer he felt that he could not simply trust God while he had it, and he gave it away. Then, he admits, without any sense of inconsistency, he gathered some light things together that might float.

Later he saw his mistake, and says so plainly. “The use of means ought not to lessen our faith in God; and our faith in God ought not to hinder our using whatever means He has given us for the accomplishment of His own purposes.” He adds that the same mistake was common in his day, when erroneous teaching on faith-healing was doing much harm. As a doctor, he always asked God’s blessing on appropriate treatment and gave Him thanks for recovery. To neglect the means God puts within reach, he thought, would be as presumptuous as refusing to eat and expecting to live by prayer alone.

Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? JEREMIAH 8:22

This is real wisdom from a man often thought a pure enthusiast. Trust in God is not the opposite of prudence. Guidance does not mean abandoning reason, and faith does not mean refusing the doctor, the lifebelt or the careful plan. It means using them all as gifts from the hand of the One on whom alone we rely.

He knoweth the way

In his New Year’s address Under the Shepherd’s Care Taylor gathers a series of texts about what God knows. One of them is Job’s: He knoweth the way that I take. Job did not understand the way he was being led, Taylor says; he was bewildered. But he had this comfort. And when we cannot understand God’s dealings with us, we may rest on the same truth. “He knows all; this suffices for us.”

But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. JOB 23:10

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Think of a closed door or spoiled plan in your life that later turned out to be God’s guidance. Thank Him for it.

2. If a door has closed recently, write down what you know of God’s character, and trust Him with what you do not know of His plan.

3. Take a decision you are facing and literally spread it before God, in writing if it helps. Then act on the best light you have.

4. Examine whether you have been waiting for a feeling of certainty that God has not promised.

5. Ask whether you have been neglecting any sensible means, medical, practical or financial, in the name of faith.

A PRAYER

Lord, You are the One Great Circumstance of my life, and every lesser circumstance is in Your hand.

Forgive me for saying All these things are against me, when You were working all things together for good.

Teach me to spread my questions before You, to trust You when there is no conscious revelation, and to use wisely the means You give.

You know the way that I take. When I cannot understand it, let that be enough for me. Amen.