And I'll Give Until There's Nothing Else

Nathan Stam
Children/Communications Pastor

"So I'll offer myself and I'll just give until there's nothing else."

How many of you have heard of Adoniram Judson? He and his wife, Ann, were the first Baptist missionaries to Burma and, in fact, spent their "honeymoon" in 1812 on the long boat voyage to Calcutta (it took them four months!). Read what Adoniram went through during his years of missionary service:

• His wife, Ann, underwent a stillbirth on the voyage to India and was bedridden for quite some time upon their arrival.
• Ann and Adoniram spent up to twelve hours a day in language study.
• Fire ravaged where they had chosen to live and drove them to live in an out-of-the-way missions house.
• They both suffered frequently from tropical fevers.
• Their baby, Roger, who was born one year after they settled in Rangoon, died of fever at six months.
• In 1822, Ann had to take an extended sick leave back to the United States.
• War broke out between Burma and England in 1824, and all foreigners were suspected of being spies. Adoniram was arrested and confined to a death prison, where he awaited execution for most of a year and a half.
• In prison each night the "criminals" were hoisted from their ankle fetters to a pole suspended from a ceiling until only their heads and shoulders rested on the ground.
• His wife, Ann, died of fever after he had been released from prison along with their new baby, Maria.
• He retreated for a while into the jungle, built a hut, and lived as a recluse. He dug a grave where he kept vigil for days on end, filling his mind with morbid thoughts of death (I can't blame him!). He wrote during this time, "God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I find him not."
• He eventually recovered and remarried a woman named Sarah. During their ten years of marriage, he and Sarah had eight children, and buried two. After their last child was born in 1845 Sarah passed away on their way back to the United States. It was the first time in thirty-three years that Adoniram had seen his homeland.
• While in the U.S. he married again and with his new wife, Emily, returned to Burma in July of 1846. He left behind three of his children whom he would never see again (three of his other children had been left behind in Burma and one of those died while he was away).
• Adoniram and Emily were married for three years and even had a baby girl. But in 1850 (with Emily expecting another child) Adoniram left on a sea voyage, died, and was buried at sea. Ten days later Emily underwent a stillbirth and she herself died three years later back in the United States at the age of thirty-six.

When I first read an account of Adoniram's life, all of his pain and loss (and the suffering of his family!) seemed an awful price to pay. Why did he do it? "If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings," he wrote. And later, "In spite of sorrow, loss and pain, our course be onward still. We sow on Burma's barren plain, we reap on Zion's hill."

He gave until he had nothing else for the sake of Christ and the Gospel and for his love of the Burmese people. What have I given to God? What have I suffered for Christ? I'm much better at keeping things for myself than giving them away, and yet that's what Christ bids me come and do: "If anyone wants to come with me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it."

Are you willing to give of yourself until there's nothing left?

"If you do nothing in a difficult time, your strength is limited. Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. If you say, "But we didn't know about this," won't He who weighs hearts consider it? Won't He who protects your life know? Won't He repay a person according to his work? (Proverbs 31:8-9)