Pathways Press.com

MEDITATION:

Written by Gary Chapman, a contemporary pastor, marriage counselor, and author.

As heir to the Borden Dairy estate, William Borden was a millionaire by the time he graduated from high school. While a student at Yale University, Borden was president of Phi Beta Kappa and was active in football, baseball, crew, and wrestling. But his passion was his religious work, particularly the rescue mission he established.  By the time Borden finished Yale in 1909, he had decided to become a missionary to China despite warnings from his friends that he was wasting his life. He enrolled in Princeton Seminary and traveled to other colleges and seminaries, urging students to give their lives to missions. Through all of his other commitments, he kept up his visits to the Yale Hope Mission and gave generously to support its ministry. Borden died at the age of twenty-five while training in Egypt, but his influence lives on. As Princeton professor Charles Erdman said of Borden, “Apart from Christ, there is no explanation of such a life.”  True humility doesn’t make sense in human terms. Giving up a privileged life to serve others is nothing less than a radical idea. Indeed, apart from the humility God models for us, there is no explanation for it at all. 

PRAYER:

Written by John Baillie (1886-1960) was a Scottish theologian and  a Church of Scotland minister.

O Heavenly Father,

give me a heart like the heart of Jesus,

a heart more ready to serve than be served,

a heart moved by compassion

towards the weak and oppressed.

A heart set upon the coming of your kingdom

in the world of men and women. Amen.