Are You Willing?

Are You Willing?

[Daniel prayed,] “O LORD, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands. But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. . . . As you see, our faces are covered with shame. This is true of all of us, including the people of Judah and Jerusalem and all Israel, scattered near and far, wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you.”

Daniel 9:4-7

Because of a severe stutter, Hannah Hurnard was a withdrawn, fearful girl who dreaded being around people. But when she surrendered her heart to Christ at age twenty, he began to transform her life. While attending an open-air Christian meeting, Hannah felt a call to be a missionary but had no idea where she’d go. After spending four years with an evangelistic group, she went to Ireland. While reading her Bible one day on a hillside, she saw how Daniel identified himself completely with the sins of the Israelites when he fasted and prayed.

She sensed God asking her, Hannah, would you be willing to identify yourself with the Jewish people the same way Daniel identified with the Israelites?

Because she had no particular fondness for the Jews, she was upset by the question. “Lord, I have no desire to be with them at all. How could I be a missionary to people I don’t even like?”

If you are willing to go, I will help you love the Jews and identify with them. It all depends on your will, God replied to her heart.

Hannah knelt and told God she would obey. Her friends doubted the decision, and her doctor said she could never withstand the rigors of working in such a climate. She applied to the only mission she knew of in Palestine and was rejected. But Hannah persevered, and eventually, paying her own expenses, she did go to Israel to minister to the Jewish people. Because of her unique gifts and her willingness to go wherever God sent her, she was launched into a lifelong ministry of evangelism, speaking, and writing books that touched millions of people around the world for Christ.

She lived a life vastly different from that of anyone else in her British family or circle of friends, but it had a fruitfulness and joy that was both supernatural and satisfying. —CHERI

Lord, I want to be willing to do your will. Please show me the way. Take my fears, and give me courage to follow you.

God’s will is easy to find if we want it. Really, the only people who miss his will are those who have no use for it. The months and years may show us that we’ve taken a strange, roundabout way, but if our hearts are right, our feet will never go astray.

—DAVID ROPER, PASTOR AND WRITER