David Brainerd
David Brainerd
David Brainerdwas an American missionary to the Native Americans who had a particularly fruitful ministry among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. During his short life he was beset by many difficulties. As a result, his biography has become a source of inspiration and encouragement to many Christians, including missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Elliot, and Brainerd's cousin, the Second Great Awakening evangelist James Brainerd Taylor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth20 April 1718
CountryUnited States of America
I have received my all from God. Oh, that I could return my all to God.
It is sweet to be nothing and less than nothing that Christ may be all in all.
I longed to be a flame of fire continually glowing in the divine service and building up of Christ's kingdom to my last and dying breath.
It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way... There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing his whole will.
I love to live on the brink of eternity.
All my desire was the conversion of the heathen... I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.
The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best.
I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altigether devoted to Him. i want to wear out my life in His service, and for His Glory!!
Oh! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world.
Oh! it is sweet to be thus weaned from friends, and from myself, and dead to the present world, that so I may live wholly to and upon the blessed God!
We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.
I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so I could but gain souls to Christ
Here am I, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage lost of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in your service, and to promote your kingdom
There is a God in heaven who overrules all things for the best; and this is the comfort of my soul.