Moving Man through God

Is any thing too hard for the LORD? GENESIS 18:14

When Hudson Taylor looked ahead to China as a young man in Hull, one prospect weighed on him more than danger or disease. He would be far from human help, dependent on God alone. He did not doubt that God would be faithful; he feared his own faith might fail. So he set himself a course of training, summed up in a sentence that became the motto of his life: “When I get out to China, I shall have no claim on any one for anything; my only claim will be on God. How important, therefore, to learn before leaving England to move man, through God, by prayer alone.”

A forgetful employer

The first exercise was modest. His employer, a busy and kindly doctor, had asked Taylor to remind him when his salary fell due. Taylor resolved not to remind him directly, but to ask God to bring it to his mind. The quarter-day passed; Taylor went on praying, and his money ran down until, one Saturday night, he had a single half-crown left.

What happened next is told in chapter six of this book. Here we follow the salary. A fortnight later he was in the same plight, with the added burden that his landlady would need her rent on Saturday. Ought he to speak? To do so would be, to his own mind at least, an admission that he was not fit for China. He gave most of Thursday and Friday to prayer, and on Saturday morning felt assured that he should wait.

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. PSALM 62:5

At five that afternoon the doctor leaned back in his chair and asked, out of nowhere, whether Taylor’s salary was not due again. Taylor, with his eyes fixed on a boiling pan so that his face would not give him away, said it was overdue. The doctor was sorry; he had just sent all his money to the bank. Taylor fled the room with his pan and poured out his heart to God. That night, near ten o’clock, as he was about to leave, the doctor came back laughing: one of his richest patients had just called, unable to rest, to pay his bill in bank notes. The doctor handed some of them to Taylor. He went home, he says, to praise the Lord that after all he might go to China.

Why it mattered so much

It would be easy to smile at this; the money was owed to him. But the question uppermost in his mind was not the money but whether he could trust God in China. He was testing himself in small things before the stakes became large.

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. LUKE 16:10

He drew the moral himself: “If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life.” Years later in Separation and Service he gave the same counsel to young people whose parents opposed their going abroad. Thank God for the obstacle, he says, and pray for its removal: “When they have learnt to move man through God at home, they will be the better prepared to do the same thing in the mission-field.”

This is the heart of his teaching on prayer. It is the way the child of God gets things done, because God is the One who moves hearts, opens doors and supplies needs. Taylor believed that the most effective thing he could do about a stubborn employer, a closed province or an empty bank account was to speak to God about it.

The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. PROVERBS 21:1

Prayer as business

Taylor’s phrase from the story of his conversion sums up his view: prayer is “in sober matter of fact transacting business with God.” Business is definite. It deals in particular needs and particular answers, and it expects results. Taylor prayed for specific sums, specific workers, specific places. When he founded the mission he asked for twenty-four workers, not for some workers. Later he and his colleagues asked for seventy in three years, and then for a hundred in one.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. JOHN 16:24

Taylor did not think prayer a technique for extracting things from God. He thought it the natural dealing of a child with a Father who delights to give, and whose answer might differ from the request. In Union and Communion he rebukes the habit of bringing our questions to God and then leaving the closet without waiting for His reply. Quiet waiting before God, he says, would save us from many a mistake. Business with God includes listening as well as asking.

The prayer that waits

The second part of the salary story is easily forgotten. On Saturday morning Taylor’s earnest cry was for guidance: should he speak or wait? He received, as far as he could judge, the assurance that he should wait, and his heart was at rest. Then came the doctor’s question, and the crushing answer that the money was in the bank. Taylor had prayed, received guidance and obeyed it, and the door had apparently slammed.

Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him. PSALM 37:7

He did not decide that he had misheard. He went to his room, poured out his heart, and came to the conclusion that God had His own way and was going to work in some other manner. That evening God did. Prayer that moves man through God must be willing to let God choose the man, the method and the hour.

Honest limits

Two cautions are worth adding. First, Taylor’s silence about his salary was a private discipline for a particular purpose, not a law for everyone. There is nothing unspiritual about reminding an employer that wages are due, and Scripture says the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luke 10:7). What Taylor models is not silence as such, but a readiness to take every need first to God.

Second, stories of answered prayer can make those whose prayers seem unanswered feel second-class. Taylor knew many long waits and some refusals; A Retrospect records a burnt store of medicines, a robbery, and a door to Swatow that closed for good. He told his stories not to prove that prayer always produces what we ask, but to show that God is real, and attentive, and able.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. 1 JOHN 5:14

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one person whose mind you have been trying to change by argument or pressure, and bring that person to God before you speak again.

2. Practise definiteness: write down three specific requests, with the date, and note how and when they are answered.

3. After you pray about a decision this week, stay on your knees a few minutes longer and wait for God’s leading before you move.

4. If you have an obstacle in your path, try thanking God for it and asking Him to remove it, instead of forcing it.

5. Take one small matter this week in which you would normally rely on your own arrangements, and deliberately trust God in it first.

A PRAYER

Father, You hold the hearts of kings and employers, landlords and officials, in Your hand. Teach me to come to You before I go to them.

Forgive me for praying vaguely, as if I did not expect an answer, and for rising from my knees before You had spoken.

Train me in little things, so that I may trust You in great ones. Let me learn at home what I shall need wherever You send me.

And when You close a door I thought You had opened, keep me at rest, knowing that You have Your own way and will not fail. Amen.