How To Be Patient In Tribulation

PATIENT IN TRIBULATION
by Dr. Harold Sala

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” -Romans 12:12

If ever a man was patient in tribulation it was William Carey, who as a missionary to India, pioneered the modern missionary movement. Carey was born in England to a modest mother and father, a yeoman, which meant that he probably owned a small piece of ground.

Unable to either send his son away to school or to pass on an inheritance to him, he apprenticed young William to a shoemaker, who died before Carey had finished his apprenticeship.

In the early 1800’s, it was difficult, if not nearly impossible, for someone of such lowly birth and status to ever gain recognition, yet Carey eventually did, being recognized by institutions and even governments for his work as a linguist and a social reformer.

William Carey was an unlikely candidate for success, if ever there was one. Lacking education, good family or church connections, and a helper who would encourage him, Carey often had to walk alone, ignoring rebuffs which would have paralyzed the determination of most men.

If the true measure of a person is what he overcomes to succeed, rather than simply what he does, Carey would rank very high. During his apprenticeship, he worked with a youth known as a dissenter (that’s someone who disagreed with the Anglican church) and eventually William Carey, following the example of his friend, became a Baptist.

Marrying the sister of his employer, Carey first pastored a small church, then made the decision to go to India as a missionary. His wife, however, made the decision not to go, and refused to board the ship when Carey and his eldest son left for the mission field. Eventually changing her mind, Dorothy followed.

Now some 200 years later, biographers are uncertain as to what caused her mental collapse, but soon after she arrived in India, Dorothy’s equilibrium began to fail her.

She hallucinated, but more devastating, she constantly assaulted her husband, accusing him of infidelity and philandering. On two occasions, she sought to kill him, not knowing what she was doing.

If Carey failed, it was in that he cared too much about the people he tried to reach. He taught himself Dutch, German, Sanskrit, and Bengali, a language which he knew better than any European.

He made a great contribution to India by standardizing the language. But his main purpose as a linguist was to translate Scripture into the languages of the people he served.

Lacking financial support, Carey served as the superintendent of a plantation that grew dyes which had a wide market in the free world, then a professor in the University at Serampore, and eventually a government translator.

But one of Carey’s greatest contributions to the life of the Indian people was to do for India what Wilberforce did for England. He attacked the practice of sati or burning the body of a man’s widow who was often in her 20’s along with his body following a man’s death.

After the British parliament which ruled India at the time finally outlawed the practice, Carey had the satisfaction of translating the new law into Bengali.

On one occasion, Carey happened to witness the burning of a leper. He was so moved by what he saw that he worked against the mistreatment of those afflicted with leprosy and eventually convinced the government to treat them more humanely.

He also maintained an interest in botany, and it was his efforts which gave birth to a botanical garden. He published papers and codified the plants of India, gaining world recognition and honors.

What tremendous tasks this shoe-cobbler-turned-missionary accomplished with God’s help! William Carey took his place in the shrine of God’s unlikely candidates for success who made a tremendous mark on their world. It’s amazing what God can do with somebody who is a nobody and doesn’t know that God cannot use him.

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