On heart murmurs.

I’m on the brink of my internal medicine rotation, and I just presented some research at a global health conference. On my drive up to the venue, I listened to Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, a biography of the founder of the China Inland Mission, and therefore undoubtedly one of my spiritual ancestors, so to speak.

Soon after God convicted his heart with a burden for the millions perishing in China in the 1850’s, Hudson began living a life of a sent person. He spent his next years of life in Britain practicing to live the kind of life he would lead in China — living in ramshackle huts, eating porridge or gruel, teaching himself Chinese from a Chinese copy of Luke, spending his free time ministering to the poor, giving money and speaking, and studying the Bible for his daily sustenance. His mission did not start when he moved to China, but when he received the call from God.

I went to medical school because I felt a recurrent call to serve God through a medical career. A few years ago, I imagined that I would get my degree and jet with it into underserved urban districts or developing countries. More recently, I considered a career whose earning potential could fund the brave souls through whom I could vicariously serve abroad. But I did not see that every step I took to get to that career should also be undertaken in the spirit of service that I planned to adopt on arrival. I should serve God full-time in my studying, in my patient interaction, in my test-taking, in my rest-taking, in my exercise and diet. There is no facet of my life that should remain untouched by my consecration to service.

On furlough between his many trips to China, Hudson once gave a message about what it is to be sent. Many ask whether they have a special sending from God to a place, like China, for instance. But knowing what we know of God’s charge to His waiting believers, “go and spread the gospel to all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” we should instead ask ourselves if we have a special charge from God to stay home. This made me think. Is God sending me to continue medical school? Am I sent to my current apartment, to my new hospital, to my small groups, to my prayer meeting? And if so, am I fulfilling my mission? Am I living to my sending, to my Sender?

Hudson’s management of finances also touched me. One cannot serve God and mammon. It also is a principle that those in the service of God, the ruler of the universe, reign in life by proxy. And God does not operate on debt. But where does the money come from? God is not a beggar, and neither should His children be. So Hudson had a few governing principles concerning money:

1) the only person to which a request for money should be applied is God.

2) one should never incur debt. If there is no money, there must not be God’s intention to spend.

3) the money God has given us is meant for His work. Our spending must be in the light of His needs.

At one point late in his ministry, Hudson received abundant donations from American believers — enough to send out eight missionaries. I had just listened to a few decades’ worth of the China Inland Mission coming treacherously close to bankruptcy. To me, this eight missionaries’ worth of salary would be a great rainy day fund for when supplies invariably ran short again. However, Hudson said, “If today I had received eight new missionaries to travel with me to China, but no funds for them, I would immediately set out, knowing the funds would be provided. However, to have the funds for eight missionaries but no missionaries on which to spend them, I cannot be at peace.” He then began recruiting missionaries; unfortunately, as he recruited, donations increased. Finally he ended up bringing something like 21 missionaries with him to China, and funds.

I don’t know what saving in a Christian manner looks like. My family has never had enough to save. And I have a Father who has never let me starve or go homeless. But I still innately have the fear of financial insolvency. I cling to the idea of someday having what my family has never had, a savings account that can ward off all the difficulties and surprises life can bring. Or a safety net. Or a cushy retirement. But what does my Father think of such an idea? He who has provided me with what I need, how does He feel about my finding a way to obviate His provision? Or to live beyond what is necessary for me? What about His other children, who may need the kind of money I stockpile in my hidden hoards? Can I be a good steward of the income God gives me, to distribute to God’s children the way He distributed to me all my life?

I fear not having enough money to save.

Hudson feared having more money than can be well spent.

I feel thus far God has kept me safe from having more money than I need, but I cannot outrun that temptation forever, especially as the years of medical school race by.

It is indeed difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. As my situation develops, I pray God would grow in me as the necessary grace to live to Him as the ravening roar of mammon rises in pitch.

Finally, I was touched with Hudson’s unwavering conviction that God could not but do what was best. He suffered the death of his firstborn daughter, first wife, and two sons to tropical diseases of China; his second wife died of cancer. His friends were killed in xenophobic riots. He himself suffered from health issues and immobility, from political turmoils stopping his work, from the massacres of his employees during the Boxer Rebellion. But he remained praising God, who does all things well.

There were thirty minutes left to drive when I finished the audio book. I prayed to God all that way, bringing my shortcomings to Him, rededicating myself. He shone some light on the way I had lived in the previous rotation. When things didn’t go my way, I was full of protests and complaints, jimmying and jiving to try and land opportunities or experiences I was after, and murmuring when I was thwarted. God’s light shone: I was a conniver of Jacob’s order. My heart was full of murmurs. Not aortic stenosis or mitral regurgitation, just a litany of malcontent. But God spoke to me three words from John 15:16: “I set you.” These words echoed in me. “I set you.” God set me exactly where I was placed. Not by mistake, but in His glorious purpose. I was set. So, being set, who am I to speak anything but praise? I was not, as I complained before, neglected or forgotten in my placement. I was set.

So, entering this new rotation, I am set; I am sent.

As Hudson said in a letter to his wife, “my flesh and my heart constantly fail — let them fail. God is faithful.”