Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.

• Isaiah 40:1

“My circumstances are such that I have no comfort, of any kind, but what I have in God. I live in the most lonesome wilderness; have but one single person to converse with, that can speak English. Most of the talk I hear, is either Highland-Scotch or Indian. I have no fellow-Christian to whom I might [unburden] myself, and lay open my spiritual sorrows, and with whom I might take sweet counsel in con-versation about heavenly things, and join in social prayer. I live poorly with regard to the comforts of life: most of my diet consists of boiled corn, hasty pudding, and etc. I lodge on a bundle of straw my labor is hard and extremely difficult, and I have little appearance of success, to comfort me.

“Two days later he added:

“Was much perplexed some part of the day; but towards night, had some comfortable meditations on Isaiah 40:1 ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God’ (KJV)] and enjoyed some sweetness in prayer. Afterward my soul rose so far above the deep waters, that I dared to rejoice in God: I saw, there was sufficient matter of consolation in the blessed God.”

• Robert J. Morgan, 100 Bible Verses That Made America

In my recent trip to visit the grandchildren, the oldest of them went with me to Nashville, to sell used books and games.  One of the books that I purchased in return was 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan.  As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the birth of the USA, I thought I would do a condensed mini-series on some of these verses, four posts per week for a few weeks – maybe not all 100 verses.

The quote is from verse 15 of the book, and the quotes are two days from the diary of David Brainerd.

Brainerd’s zeal for the Lord was greatly amplified during the Great Awakening.  His studies at Yale were cut short.  At the time, Yale was dedicated to the preparation of ministers to spread the Gospel, but Brainerd was so enthused that he started disrupting classes.  He was asked to leave.

He felt a calling to take the Gospel to the Native Americans.  He did so until his death at the age of 29.

Unlike the Wycliffe Bible translators of today, he had no training in learning the tribal languages, but he went from village to village, tribe to tribe, preaching the Gospel, enduring the elements, enduring bouts of depression, and suffering from tuberculosis.  In many ways, he did the same type of work that the Wycliffe Bible translators are doing.

But he did all this alone, as his lament in 1743 details, four years before his death.

These days, the evangelist or missionary goes from church to church to get financial backing.  They do not go alone, for the most part.  Brainerd felt the calling and he went.

Jonathan Edwards said of him, “He exceeded all melancholy persons that ever I was acquainted with.”

But while he could not see any fruits of his labors, he kept working until about three months before his death.  He rode a horse to the home of Jonathan Edwards.  Rev. Edwards family nursed him through those last three months until he died.

Jonathan took his diary (journal) and published it a few years later or we might never know about this young missionary.  The writings of Brainerd were used as a “second Bible” to an extent, as the next missionaries to take up the cause that Brainerd had started used his notes as a roadmap.

Had Brainerd’s efforts all been for naught?

In his mission work, there was little means to quantify his effectiveness as a missionary.  But his journal became a textbook for the next generation of missionaries.

And what spurred him on in his efforts?

He dared to rejoice in God when all around him was hardship and little success.

We are not asked to measure our impact in the world.  We all wish to here God tell us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

That is enough for any of us to dare to rejoice in God, regardless of the circumstances.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.