This Week in Church History

July 12, 1739

The conversion of a young man whose short life would impact the lives of individuals all across the North American continent:

One morning while I was walking in a solitary place (as usual) and came near a thick bunch of hazels, I felt at once unusually lost and at the greatest stand and felt that all my contrivances and projections respecting my deliverance and salvation were brought to a final issue.

After spending days in anguish, thinking finally that the spirit of God had departed, finally:

By this time the sun was scarce half an hour high, as I remember, as I was walking in a dark thick grove, "unspeakable glory" seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. By the glory I saw I don't mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing, nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light or splendor somewhere away in the third heaven, or anything of that nature. But it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God; such as I never had before, nor anything that I had the least remembrance of it. I stood still and wondered and admired.

David Brainerd enrolled at Yale, hoping to receive his ministerial degree. He was dismissed for making an impolite remark about a teacher (which he denied, but offered appology for). In spite of this, he was comissioned a missionary to the Native Americans, and ministered among them for three years.

Upon his death in 1747 at the age of 29, his father-in-law, Jonathan Edwards, preached his funeral service, and began work on his classic biography The Life of David Brainerd.

Just when you think that God cannot use someone of a young age, you are reminded of this remarkable young man. There is a new edition of Edwards' biography of Brainerd -- I highly recommend it.

Posted by Warren Kelly at July 14, 2004 10:40 PM