Your Way or God’s Way?
Adoniram Judson couldn’t wait to leave home. Raised in a strict Christian home with his father the local Congregational minister, he jumped at the chance to go to a College well away from his family.
There he befriended Jacob Eames and together they partied the years away, always relying on their intelligence and spurred on by their mutual competitiveness. Adoniram started his own small school but knowing James Eames would be doing better, intentionally lost contact with him.
Bored with life he closed the school and took off for New York City to join the theatre life. This proved slim pickings with a rag-tag group of actors who stole most of their meals and left lodgings at dawn to avoid paying. Always at the back of his mind was how much better James Eames would be doing.
Concerned at what his life had become, Adoniram decided to make the long journey home. The first night the only place offering a bed was a dingy boarding house room, and the room had to be shared with a sick man with only a sheet between the two of them. The sick man coughed all night until about 4 am, much to Adoniram’s disgust.
The next morning the inn-keeper shared the news the man had died. At least this blunted Adoniram’s anger. He’d been kept awake hour after hour. Imagine his shock when he heard the name of the poor wretch – James Eames. His closest friend had been right there, not two metres away, and he’d done nothing.
God used the shock to bring Adoniram back to himself. He became one of America’s most successful early missionaries, devoting almost 40 years of his life to the people of Burma (1813-1850) and giving them their first Bible in their own language.
God wants you for Himself. Give Him what He wants.
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