In 1870, during one of his expeditions in the heart of Africa, the British explorer and missionary doctor, David Livingstone (1813-1873), was not heard from for some time and his welfare became a matter of international concern. He was eventually found by a search party led by the journalist Henry M. Stanley, who greeted the explorer with the now-famous remark, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Later, Stanley wrote:

"I went to Africa as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in London. But there came for me a long time for reflection. I saw this solitary old man there and asked myself, 'How on earth does he stop here--is he cracked, or what? What is it that inspires him?'

"For months after we met I found myself wondering at the old man carrying out all that was said in the Bible: 'Leave all things and follow Me.' But little by little his sympathy for others became contagious; my sympathy was aroused. Seeing his piety, his gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and how he went about his business, I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it."

What was it that inspired Livingstone? Thirteen years earlier, at a student gathering at Cambridge University, he had answered a question he was frequently asked: Why had he sacrificed a potentially lucrative medical practice and the comforts of home for the hardships and deprivation of being a medical missionary to the unexplored African interior?

"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a forgoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice."

What are you doing with your life? Will it last forever for Jesus and others? "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose. (1)"

(1) Jim Elliot (1927-1957), martyred missionary to the Auca people of Ecuador.