The Patient Laborer

The Patient Laborer

The seeds of evangelism bear fruit in God’s time, not man’s.

PIONEER missionary Adoniram Judson graduated from Brown University as valedictorian at the age of nineteen and in 1810 graduated in the first class of Andover Theological Seminary. He and his wife journeyed from America to Burma (now Myanmar), arriving in 1813. Shortly thereafter they were joined by two other missionaries. However, after six years of labor not one Burmese had trusted in Christ.

Then on June 6, 1819, Judson received a letter from Moung Nau, a Burmese man who had shown great interest in the gospel but up to this point had not acted on it. The letter read:

I, Moung Nau, the constant recipient of your excellent favor, approach your feet. Whereas my Lord’s three [i.e., three missionaries] come to the country of Burma—not for the purposes of trade, but to preach the religion of Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternal God—I, having heard and understood, am, with a joyful mind, filled with love.

I believe that the divine Son, Jesus Christ, suffered death, in the place of men, to atone for their sins. Like a heavy-laden man, I feel my sins are very many. The punishment of my sins I deserve to suffer. Since it is so, do you, sirs, consider that I, taking refuge in the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receiving baptism, in order to become his disciple, shall dwell one with yourselves, a band of brothers, in the happiness of heaven, and therefore grant me the ordinance of baptism. It is through the grace of Jesus Christ that you, sirs, have come by ship from one country and continent to another and that we have met together. I pray the Lord’s three that a suitable day may be appointed, and that I may receive the ordinance of baptism.

Moreover, as it is only since I have met with you, sirs, that I have known about the eternal God, I venture to pray that you will still unfold to me the religion of God, that my old disposition may be destroyed, and my new disposition improved.

Three weeks later Moung Nau was baptized, and the barrier of unbelief was broken.

What enabled Adoniram Judson to faithfully labor so many years before seeing any fruit? We can see evidence of his motivation in the following lines, which he penciled on the inner cover of a book he used in his translation of the Bible into Burmese:

In joy or in pain,

Our course be onward still;

We sow on Burma’s barren plain;

We reap on Zion’s hill.

Today there are more than two million believers in Myanmar, and 40 percent of the Karen people to whom Adoniram Judson directed his ministry are now Christians.

Reflection

How do you think it would feel to be a missionary for six years and have no converts? It’s easy to be discouraged when we do not see immediate results. Like Adoniram Judson, we need to see the big picture. We must remember that sowing is our responsibility; the results are God’s.

My job was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God, not we, who made it grow.

1 Corinthians 3:6