Gold by Moonlight by Amy Carmichael

Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), missionary to India, lived with severe pain most of her life. Gold by Moonlight was written to encourage fellow sufferers to persevere in the faith. The title is taken from a quote by Reverend Samuel Rutherford and means that with God's help gold can be found even in the dark. Carmichael shows how illness can bring a clearer understanding of God's love and mercy. She walks a very fine line between gentleness (allowing for the fact that pain often brings irrational thinking) and no-nonsense advice (discouraging all self-pity.)

At times the language in the book is difficult and the prose is dense. Sources (most unnamed) are as varied John Buchan novels, Pilgrim's Progress, Victorian poets, and missionary biographies of a hundred years ago. Because of the antiquated language this book needs to be read slowly. Because of it's unflinching call to Christian maturity, it also needs to be read prayerfully.

A major theme in the book is submission to God's will, but this is no wimpy resignation. God does not ask for the dull, weak, sleepy acquiescence of indolence. He asks for something vivid and strong. He asks us to cooperate with Him, actively willing what He wills, our only aim His glory. (p. 40)

 I have many favorite quotes but I'll try to limit myself to just a few:

God forgive us for the strange coldness of so much of our love. The calculating love of Christians is the shame of the Church and the astonishment of angels. (p. 139)

Before the peace which passeth understanding can be ours, there must be a renunciation of faithless anxiety. (p. 81)

And my very favorite: We live a double life. Forces of distress may assail us (as they continually assailed our Lord), and we are called to labor from the rising of the morning till the stars appear, and yet all the time in the inner life of the spirit we are marvelously quickened, and raised up and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (p. 218)

A very worthwhile book for patient readers, especially those who are feeling side-lined by difficult circumstances.

Complete Surrender by Julian Wilson

I was looking for a good missionary biography and found this one on Eric Liddell available for Kindle. Anyone who has seen the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire knows the story of the runner who shot to world fame after his amazing performance in the 1924 Olympics. But while the movie majors on his athletic ability and minors on his faith, Julian Wilson’s book, Complete Surrender, does the opposite. He passes lightly over Liddell’s Olympic accomplishments and focuses on his evangelistic work and on his eight years as a missionary in China.

Despite his dazzling success on the running track and meteoric rise to national prominence Eric Liddell remained modest and unaffected. Those who knew him well knew he was more concerned with what God thought about him than what the people around him thought. His one overwhelming concern was to do what was pleasing to God.

Most of the testimonies in the book refer to his kindness and unselfishness, particularly after the Japanese put him in an internment camp (during WWII) where he cared for those who were weak and sick. The overcrowded camp with its horrible food and appalling living conditions caused the majority of its inmates to grumble and quarrel.  Eric, on the other hand, sought to be a peacemaker by sowing seeds of encouragement. He taught math and science, planned sports activities and puppet shows and taught the children how to play chess and checkers.

Julian Wilson shared this anecdote:

Camp policy was to have no games on Sunday, but a group of bored teenagers defied the ruling one Sunday and organized a boys versus girls hockey match. Without a referee, tempers became frayed and the match ended in a brawl. The following Sunday, Liddell was out on the field umpiring. “Eric decided it was far more important that the youngsters played and worked together in harmony than it was to keep his Sabbatarian principles inviolate” according to his close friend Joe Cotterill. So the man who gave up the chance of winning a gold medal in the 100 meters at the Olympic games, because he refused to run on Sundays, was prepared to sacrifice his principles for the sake of fostering a spirit of peace and unity among the young people.

The book contains many more amazing stories. But Wilson is careful to emphasize that Liddell was just an ordinary man who walked in complete obedience to Christ. Eric's favorite theme when he talked to young people was “a God-controlled life” and his last words were, “Annie, it’s complete surrender.” Although he had given up his athletic career to go to China, he won the only race that really matters. At the end of his life he could say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (II Tim 4:7,8)

Nothing Daunted: The Story of Isobel Kuhn

Isobel Kuhn (1901-1957) is one of my favorite missionary writers.  She and her husband, John, served the Lisu people in the mountains of southern China from 1934 to 1950.  Nothing Daunted gives an overview of their life and ministry.  When Isobel and John went to China they had no idea that they would be ousted because of WWII and later because of communism, but God laid it on their hearts to focus on a teaching ministry.  They knew they could never reach the hundreds of Lisu villages by themselves, so they held yearly Bible schools for men, women and teens. These were intensive weeks of training in the newly translated Lisu New Testament.  

The Kuhn’s encountered many trials.  Some of their carefully trained leaders died of illness because they lived so far away from medical care. Their daughter Kathryn was sent to a boarding school that was captured by the Japanese during the war. Fighting among the clans threatened to destroy the churches. But John and Isobel toiled on.  When they left China in 1950 there were 17,000 believers.  Because of the Kuhn's insistence on thorough Bible training, the Lisu Christians continued to preach and teach; 50 years later there were 200,000 Lisu Christians.

After you read this book, you should read one of Kuhn’s own books. Green Leaf In Drought is probably the most famous, but By Searching is another gem.

Give Me This Mountain by Helen Roseveare

Helen Roseveare was an English medical missionary in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) from 1953 to 1973, but her stories reach a much broader audience than most missionary biographies.  I have long thought that Roseveare's four other books (Living Sacrifice, Living Faith, Living Holiness, and Living Fellowship) should be required reading for every Christian.  In spite of the silly subtitles (which somebody added later), these are serious books about what it means to be an earnest follower of Christ.  Give Me This Mountain covers her first tumultuous years in Africa (from 1953 to 1965). He Gave Us a Valley is the sequel.

When Helen became a Christian, a pastor wrote Phillipians 3:10 in her Bible: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." The words were prophetic.  Through all her years in Congo Helen learned to know the fellowship of his sufferings.  But instead of being defeated by troubles, she grew in her knowledge of God and his faithfulness.  She learned the power of his resurrection as she was delivered from death many times.

Roseveare is disarmingly honest about her struggles and weaknesses. And she is very quick to give God all the credit for enabling her to do what he called her to do.  Her example will inspire you, too, to have a tender, obedient heart.