Saw this on Justin Taylor’s blog the other day and loved it:
From a children’s book written over 100 years ago by husband-and-wife missionaries-to-Muslims Samuel and Amy Zwemer:
When you read in mission reports of troubles and opposition, of burning up books, imprisoning colporteurs and expelling missionaries you must not think that the gospel is being defeated.It is conquering.
What we see under such circumstances is only the dust in the wake of the ploughman.
God is turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus comes.
He that plougheth should plough in hope.
We may not be able to see a harvest yet in this country but, furrow after furrow, the soil is getting ready for the seed.
—Samuel M. Zwemer and Amy E. Zwemer, Topsy-Turvy Land: Arabia Pictured for Children (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1902), 116.