The History Channel is running a new tv show based around the 1871 trek of American journalist Henry Morton Stanley to find missing explorer Dr. David Livingstone. The show looks intriguing, and it got me to thinking about Livingstone. I’d never read much about him, but I thought that I remembered him being a man of faith.
So I googled…and man, was he! He was a pioneer missionary who lived a life committed to seeing the Good News carried to people who needed to know, and to seeing slavery abolished. He tried the conventional and accepted methods of missionary evangelism, but when those proved unsuccessful, he branched out and began to think outside the box. Later in life he believed that his calling was to serve the kingdom as an explorer as well, and his work in Africa is legendary.
Here are a few quotes:
All that I am I owe to Jesus Christ, revealed to me in His divine Book.
I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.
I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the kingdom of Christ.
If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.
Reading accounts of the lives of men like Livingstone gets me fired up. I want to pursue God’s call on my life with that kind of passion, that kind of focus, that kind of abandon. When he died, they buried his heart in Africa, and 2 of his porters took his body back to England.
What would State College look like if I took that attitude, that resolve, that love and lived everyday like it was an adventure?
Where’d I put my boots?
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