Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.
Interpretation
To achieve great things, one must approach challenges with humility and determination.
Hudson Taylor's quote emphasizes the notion that spiritual or personal progression often requires a humble approach. The metaphor of going forward on one's knees suggests a posture of submission, respect, and recognition of the effort needed in pursuit of one's goals, particularly in the context of faith and service to others.
In practice
In a church sermon about dedication to service, this quote highlights the need for humility in our approach to challenges.
We are not only to renounce evil, but to manifest the truth. We tell people the world is vain; let our lives manifest that it is so. We tell them that our home is above and that all these things are transitory. Does our dwelling look like it? O to live consistent lives!
If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Saviour's plain command to go?
Too often we attempt to work for God to the limit of our incompetency, rather than to the limit of God's omnipotency.
When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.
The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity...if we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."
I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.
Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper. She showed the world that the color of your skin shouldn't determine what part of the bus you sit in... as you ride through life.
I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.
A young man should ask himself not if it is his duty to go to the heathen, but if he may dare stay at home. The command is so plain: βGo.β
My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute.
Once every seven days, do something that frightens you. Every time we do something that we resist and is frightening, we actually grow in our power.
I do not murmur, even if my heart break.
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