One burning heart



Brainerd's book--atop an old Bible

 What chances would you give a boy whose father died when he was nine, and his mother when he was fourteen—and he was the third of nine children? Bear in mind there was no government welfare; this was the early 1700s in colonial Connecticut.

            Add to those a heart that truly sought after God, believed Him for the impossible, and pursued God’s calling with diligence and earnest prayer. After a stint of farming, college and ministry, he died at 29 of tuberculosis. A few months later the same disease took his betrothed, Jerusha, daughter of famed New England preacher Jonathan Edwards.

            Yet this man’s diaries inspired Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia. William Carey, who went to India. Adoniram Judson, who left his mark in Burma. And, within more recent times, Jim Elliot, who gave his life for a small tribe in Ecuador (then known as the Aucas).

            His name: David Brainerd. He lived 1718-1747.

            I recently read a thin volume of his diary excerpts that’s been in our church library for more than half a century. The cover is an ordinary gray, but the pages glow with the passion of a man who lived his all for God. Brainerd didn’t stay stuck in grief, thinking his life didn’t matter. It did matter, for many Native Americans in Delaware whose language he learned so he could preach and translate scriptures. He led many to faith in Christ, all while living under primitive conditions.

            It’s a convicting book. Repeatedly he tells of fasting and praying, of self-examination, and of finding “unspeakable sweetness and delight in God.” One entry after extended prayer: “There appeared to be nothing of any importance to me but holiness of heart and life, and the conversion of the heathen to God.” A few sentences later: “I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through so that I could gain souls to Christ.”



The article telling Anna's story

         I decided to check out Brainerd’s diary after reading a feature article in the Autumn 2012 Wheaton alumni magazine about student Anna O’Connor. When barely 17, Anna was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer that develops in nerve tissue. After nearly a year of treatment, the cancer wasn’t responding. Doctors expected her to die within the year.

            She lived nine more years. “But the real miracle,” the article about her said, “took place within, as she began to see ‘God’s clear purpose’ for her life.” In a chapel message, she encouraged students to “learn what it means to be fully alive to the presence of God.”

            In reading that, I flashed back to Brainerd’s diary, and this description of his conversion: “My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him…Thus God brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt Him, and set Him on the throne as King of the universe.”

            Anna didn’t sit back and “be sick.” She established a non-profit organization, hosted a music festival, finished her master’s in psychology (professors hand-delivered her master’s diploma to her in the hospital), and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research. She connected with people, comforting and counseling. Even when sent home from the hospital on hospice care, she continued to lead a small group of young women.

            When she died at 26, some 1,700 people attended her service in Wheaton’s Edman Chapel.

            Wheaton, by the way, is also the alma mater of Jim Elliot, 1956 missionary martyr who was influenced by Brainerd.

             Try this: list  what was important to you as a twenty-something. What would you have changed in obedience and love of God? If He's nudging you to go deeper spiritually, pray about that.Then pray for the spiritual journey of a young adult you know.