Hudson Taylor, Mother's Heart and the Kingdom of God in China

“It is in the path of obedience and self-denying service that God reveals Himself
most intimately to His children. When it costs most we find the greatest joy.
We find the darkest hour the brightest and the greatest loss the highest gain.
While the sorrow is short-lived and will soon pass away,
the joy is far more exceeding, and it is eternal.” (Hudson Taylor)

"Dear God, if You should give us a son, grant that he may work for You in China."
(Prayer of Hudson Taylor's parents, before he was born.)

Young Hudson Taylor

Hudson Taylor, a great man of prayer and faith, responded to God’s call to go to China as a missionary. His father had already died. He had to leave his widowed mother to go to China. By the end of his life in 1905, he had been used by God to found the China Inland Mission. There were 205 preaching stations, 849 missionaries, and 125,000 Chinese Christians – a testimony of a life absolutely surrendered to God. Hudson Taylor described something of the cost he and his mother experienced as he obeyed God’s will to go to China as a missionary.

It was difficult for Taylor to leave his mother behind. It was, perhaps, even more difficult for his mother. Hudson Taylor was finally leaving for China. He writes of his feelings surrounding this goodbye:

    “My beloved mother had come over to Liverpool to see me off.  Never shall I forget that day, nor how she went with me into the cabin that was to be my home for nearly six long months.  With a mother's loving hand she smoothed the little bed.  She sat by my side and joined in the last hymn we should sing together before parting.  We knelt down and she prayed - the last mother's prayer I was to hear before leaving for China.  Then notice was given that we must separate, and we had to say good-bye, never expecting to meet on earth again.

For my sake she restrained her feelings as much as possible.  We parted, and she went ashore giving me her blessing.  I stood alone on deck, and she followed the ship as we moved toward the dock-gates.  As we passed through the gates and the separation really commenced, never shall I forget the cry of anguish wrung from that mother's heart.  It went through me like a knife.  I never knew so fully, until then, what "God so loved the world" meant.  And I am quite sure my precious mother learned more of the love of God for the perishing in that one hour than in all her life before.

    Oh how it must grieve the heart of God when He sees His children indifferent to the needs of that wide world for which His beloved, His only Son suffered and died”
(quote from A Retrospect by J. Hudson Taylor. Chapter 8: Voyage to China, pg 24).

Both Hudson and his mother had to pay a high cost for obedience. The price was tremendously sort of heartbreaking but the reward, the blessing God have for His faithful servant was infinitely more valuable. God used Hudson Taylor mightily to reach interior China with the gospel of Christ – all this happened because; By God’s grace He called Taylor. By his parent’s faithful prayers God answered. By Taylor’s obedience God used him mightily for His Kingdom. Amazing! 

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.