I just wanted to share a bit from a chapter of
Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, the biography of missionary Hudson Taylor.
This below is taken from a letter Taylor sent to his sister from China, after he had experienced a deep time of feeling away from God. It's bit long, but I've tried to shorten where I can while keeping the meat of it. If you want the whole thing, let me know...
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"Well, dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for mediation--but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.
I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. ... Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. ...
Then came the question, 'Is there no rescue?' Must it be thus to the end--constant conflict, and too often defeat? How could I preach with sincerity that, to those who receive Jesus, 'to them he gave the power to become the sons of God' (i.e., Godlike) when it was not so in my own experience? ...
I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed; but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out ...
All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was--how to get it out. He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. ... As light gradually dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite--was the hand to lay hold on His fulness and make it mine. But I had not this faith.
I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. ... Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt,
the damning sin of the world; yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. ...
When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter [received from a friend] was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our
oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. [The friend wrote,] I quote from memory:
'But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.'
As I read, I saw it all! 'If we believe not, He abideth faithful.' [2 Tim. 2:13] I looked to Jesus and saw ... that He had said 'I will never leave thee.' [Heb 13:5] ...
I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ...
Oh, my dear Sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? ...
Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerck say to a customer, 'It was only your hand, not you, that wrote that check'; or 'I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself''? No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus ... on the ground that we are His, His members.
The sweetest part ... is the
rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. ... So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance? in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? ... And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells with me.
...
I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ -- and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and 'the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.' ...
