A Fruitful Promise

A Fruitful Promise

[The LORD said,] “I am with you, and no one will attack and harm you, for many people in this city belong to me.” Acts 18:10

FOREIGNERS WERE NOT WELL RECEIVED in some regions of China in the late 1800s, but when missionary Jonathan Goforth was led through north Henan by a guide, he felt led to pray that God would give him that region as his field of ministry. He sensed assurance that this prayer was granted, but over the next six years, entry into the area seemed impossible. One of the main cities of the province was hostile toward missionaries, and Goforth and his colleagues were mobbed and threatened at times when they visited. But he never lost sight of the promise and never questioned whether it would come to pass. After six years and periods of intense prayer, Goforth was able to secure a piece of property—a site he had earlier prayed to receive as an ideal location—and the area began to open up. He and his family received constant visitors inquiring about the Christian faith. It became a very fruitful field of ministry.

The Goforths understood the power and purpose of a prayer of faith—they greatly advanced God’s Kingdom in China through asking and receiving from God—and demonstrated the life of faith through frequent hardships, dangers, and delays. When many other foreigners were killed in the Boxer Rebellion, the Goforths survived by clinging to the promise from Isaiah 54:17 that no weapon turned toward them would succeed and by the prayers of many Christians back home in Canada. They lived out the promise of Psalm 34:19—that “many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (NKJV)—by facing down disease, attacks, injuries, rejection, and the death of several children. In the end, they wrote and spoke of numerous testimonies of God’s faithfulness in spite of the losses they suffered.

God’s promises don’t always come without a cost. But they are given for a purpose, and when we exercise faith in them—for six years or even much longer—they eventually come to pass. Through them, he wants us to persist in the direction of his calling and our God-given desires, to learn of his faithfulness in the process, and to advance his Kingdom in this world.

During all those years, my husband never once lost sight of God’s promise to him nor failed to believe it.