The Prayer of John Broadus

Send us affliction and trouble, blight our dearest hopes if need be, that we may learn more fully to depend on thee. --John Broadus

Would that all Christians had faith of John Broadus. In a time where the Christian faith is demeaned to Your Best Life Now, few lay people or even pastors would dare pray or preach a faith that is difficult and that may cause difficulties in your life. TV preachers encourage us to "sow a faith seed" of so many dollars so that we can be blessed with hundreds or thousands of dollars. That's the blessing of Christ? That's it?

John Broadus prayed this prayer and Lottie Moon quoted it. Moon, a missionary who gave up her somewhat aristocratic lifestyle in the United States to share the love of Christ in China, prayed God, teach me to depend on thee...at all costs. This woman would eventually starve herself to death giving away her food to the people around her. Lottie Moon did not have her Best Life Now, no, she suffered through her life here. But, make not mistake about it, because of Lottie Moon, many Chinese experience the best life that Christ has to offer for all of eternity, and Lottie Moon herself, no doubt, received an incredible blessing at her death.

How willing are you to allow God to work in your life? Are you so open to the work of God, that you would gladly invite him to send affliction, if it would draw you closer? How willing are you...how willing am I?