Listen: Chris Witts presents Morning Devotions
I’d like to talk about a man who at age 32 wrote a hymn which is still considered by many as the greatest of all. And I’m talking about the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light” written by John Henry Newman in 1833. It still is sung in churches today, and has been a help to many.
I read that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the American newspaper publisher who died in 1968, found life difficult and stressful during the years of World War II. He was responsible for the highly respected
The New York Times, and it was hard going. Countries were at war, and he was worried about his work, and found it difficult to sleep. He found it hard to banish worries from his mind until he came across this hymn “Lead, Kindly Light”. In particular the first verse which says:
What is sacrifice? I spoke about the terrible event that happened 13 Jan 1982. The
Air Florida Flight 90 was taking off from Washington DC. It was snowing and this plane crashed into the Potomac River and only six of the 79 people onboard survived the initial crash.
But there was one hero, one amazing man Arland Williams, a 46-year-old bank executive from Atlanta.
He was given the opportunity to save himself when a rescue helicopter arrived. But Arland Williams gave his rescue ring away to the other survivors on that terrible day of 1982, when he knew it was his last chance to live. He must have known, because when the chopper thundered back seconds later, he was gone. The man in the water had vanished beneath the ice. That hero was Arland Williams.
What is sacrifice? What sacrifices have you made?
It was David Livingston who wrote:
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 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.
Help the needy.
They started to talk about it. The hen said:
I know how we could help. We could give them ham and eggs for breakfast. The pig was horrified:
That’s okay for you. For you it’s only a contribution, but for me it’s total commitment. The pig knew what that meant, and he wasn’t having any part of it.
I want to talk today about that word ‘sacrifice’. Not a very popular word, but one we know about. How many mothers have sacrificed hours of sleep trying to get their baby to sleep, or spent their last savings on their children’s education. This is sacrifice.