Editors Note: This is a new series on spiritual growth designed to help our readers understand how to grow in Christ.
- Dave wrote the first post in this series on the blessing of the spiritual disciplines.
- Joey Cochran wrote the second post in this series on the four functions of prayer.
- Chris Poblete wrote the third post on the practice of private prayer.
- Chris wrote the fourth post on the practice of corporate prayer.
- Matthew Fretwell wrote the fifth post on finding the silence of God.
- Brian Hedges wrote the sixth post on how to lead family devotions.
- Today, Chris shares from Hudson Taylor about the importance of having a personal devotion time.
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Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was a British missionary to China and the founder of the China Inland Mission (currently OMF International). Against all odds and many criticisms, he moved to China at the age of 21 and went to unconventional lengths (such as wearing native Chinese clothing—considered a scandal by many Western missionaries of his day) to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached peoples of inland China. He has been used greatly by God and is currently one of the most widely-known and influential missionaries in Christian history.
Taylor’s son, Dr. Howard Taylor, in Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret (p. 243) accounts an experience he had traveling with his father through China. He writes,
It was not easy for Mr. Taylor in his changeful life, to make time for prayer and Bible study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do the writers remember traveling with him month after month in northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow, with the poorest of inns at night. Often with only one large room for coolies and travelers alike, they would screen off a corner for their father and another for themselves, with curtains of some sort; and then after sleep at last had brought a measure of quiet they would hear a match struck and seek the flicker of candlelight which told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was pouring over the little Bible in two volumes always at hand. From two to four a.m. was the time he usually gave to prayer; the time when he could be most sure of being undisturbed to wait upon God. That flicker of candlelight has meant more to them than all they have read or heard on secret prayer; it meant reality, not preaching but practice.
“Satan will always find you something to do,” he would say, “when you ought to be occupied about that, if it is only arranging a window blind.”
Let’s take heed the counsel of this great missionary. To accomplish great things for God—even to enjoy Him—we must, by His grace, maintain regular, prayerful Bible study.
Chris is a Christian, husband to Alyssa, works as Executive Director of The Gospel for OC and Writer and Editor at Blue Letter Bible. Chris and his wife Alyssa worship and serve at Reverence Bible Church in Mission Viejo, California. He is the author of The Two Fears: Tremble Before God Alone.
