by Jerry Senn
“Quite a few years ago, William Borden went to Yale Univ as an undergraduate and afterward became a missionary candidate planning to work in China. When he made his decision to invest his life in this service, many of his friends thought he was foolish. He had come from a good family. He had wealth and influence. “Why are you going to throw away your life in some foreign country,” they asked, “when you can have such an enjoyable and worthwhile life here?”
But William Borden of Yale had heard the call of God. While in Egypt, on the way to China and even before he had much chance to do anything, he became sick. Soon it was evident to everyone, including himself, that he would die.
At this point Borden could have said to himself, “What a waste. My friends were right. I could have stayed in New Haven.” But Borden did not think this way. As he lay on his deathbed in Egypt, he scribbled a farewell note to his friends that was in some sense his epitaph. The note read,
“No Reserve, No Retreat, No Regrets.”
When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship tried to turn him back. “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among those savages,” he cried. Calvert only replied, “We died before we came here.”
Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).