Mentoring Our Boys –

An Experpt from Raise Sons, by Tony Rorie of The Men of Honor Ministries.

From his age of earliest remembrance, David Livingston would sit upon his father’s knee and hear stories about the Dark Continent. From his knee, he could almost smell the smoke of campfires rising above the grass rooftops of a thousand villages. He could envision the dense and uncharted jungles. He could taste the spray of cascading waterfalls over massive heights and he knew that one day he would take the good news of Jesus Christ to Africa. It became his passion and his destiny.

The day would finally come. Twenty years later, now married, David Livingstone embarked on his missionary journey of exploration. He immediately began charting and evangelizing, village-by-village throughout the hostile country.

Through great personal sacrifice and imminent danger the gospel began to illuminate the darkest regions as this fiery evangelist pursued those lost and blinded by centuries of demonic oppression.

His wife, now a great part of his ministry and life, fell ill and contracted a deadly disease. With no other options, David and his wife returned to England to the care of doctors and badly needed medicine. As days passed, his wife’s condition revealed that there was no possible option for her return to the mission field. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and David Livingstone’s restlessness began to increase. Finally, while David paced the floor in his wife’s room, His wife told him “you must return to Africa, your passion is consuming you.” As the prophecy of the Savior has said, “The zeal of thine house hath consumed me”, so David Livingstone’s purpose in life was calling to him.

With great heartache, he left his loving wife and departed for the calling masses in need of the Savior. Their tremendous love for each other was testified to by their correspondence across the seas. Parting was no easy thing for them.

Through villages and jungles, he relentlessly traveled proclaiming salvation through the Name of Jesus. Often caught between tribal wars and skirmishes, he narrowly avoided harm. In one such flight, while running for his life in the dead of night, his eye was lost as he ran into a protruding tree branch in the darkness. But even without the benefit of two eyes, his spiritual vision saw a nation that needed the message of freedom in Christ. Wild animals attacked him. In one such attack, he had his shoulder mauled by a wild Lion.

His love for his wife never dimmed as they corresponded their love across the oceans in letters of great affection. The day came when David would return to the wife of his youth. The years of exposure to the sun had so darkened his now leathery skin and the jungle had so marred his countenance that his wife did not recognize him, save for his voice as he entered her room.

David remained with his wife until her death and then returned for yet another missionary trip to Africa. This time, with no other focus and greater determination, he left for Africa to preach the Gospel.
As time continued, David himself contracted a deadly disease. David cried out to the Lord and said I will not leave again. If you want me to live, send medicine.

Some weeks later, an Englishman appeared in Africa from her majesty to interview the man so revered as the missionary explorer of Africa. He began to tell Mr. Livingston that first off, he was a swaggering atheist, no need in trying to convert him and that for some reason he was supposed to bring him medicine.

With the medicine he needed, David continued from village to village preaching and seeing many delivered from the bondage of sin that all men without Christ are subject to.

His condition grew graver as the years passed by. His body was now failing, yet his spirit and relentless desire continued to press on. Eventually he would have to be carried on a litter from village to village where he would prop himself up and preach to the conversion of his hearers.

Exhausted yet undaunted, David Livingston was confronted by one of his servants by his bedside. “You must rest Mr. Livingston, you must sleep!” “No!” David Livingston replied, “I must pray for Africa! Please prop me up by my bed to pray.” Hours later the servant returned to check on his leader. To his amazement, David Livingston had died on his knees, praying for the country that he had given his entire life and strength to evangelize!

The tribal leaders gathered from all areas of the continent to honor this great general of God. They ceremonially wrapped and decorated his body and began a relay to hand carry his body, on a cot, to the coast where an awaiting vessel would carry him back to his homeland for burial. As the procession reached the shore, those Englishmen waiting to carry his body home were shocked as one of the tribal leaders took out a great knife and cut into the chest of David Livingston. “What are these savages doing?” cried the Englishmen. The Chiefs replied as they cut out something from his chest, “His body may belong to England, but his heart belongs to AFRICA!”

Where are our hearts? How do we value our purposes in life? What is the passion of our existence? Where will they bury our hearts when we die? Will it be on the golf course? Will it be in the stands of a sporting event, or perhaps in the living room in front of our televisions? Or will our hearts beat on in the chest of men that we have help build and sons that we have raised. Will the legacy of our passion live on for greatness or decompose in the soil of some menial, mediocre pursuit not worthy of the greatness that is our potential. We must come alive to the fact that we must invest somewhere and that our lives create a legacy for good or evil in the lives of the men around us and the sons we raise beneath us.

Posted on May 16th, 2008 by Jeff Purkiss
Filed under: Cultural Issues, Fathering/Mentoring