Uncategorized

Legacy

by Matt Bullen

An amazing thing happened to me today. I was sitting in a meeting with the owner of the building that I just completed and Ed Wong, a landscape designer whom I had just met that day. The owner of the building, (who is a strong believer and who knows that my job has run out and that this is my last week in construction and I will be launching out by faith in full-time ministry starting next week), asks me if I know how I am going to support my family and I respond that I don’t know yet but I am trusting God to take care of us. At this comment, Ed Wong’s head comes up and he says, “You know, J. Hudson Taylor said, ‘God’s work done God’s way will never lack for God’s supply'” I smile and say, “I love that quote! I am a big fan of Hudson Taylor. Ed smiles and says, “I am a good friend of J. Hudson Taylor  IV who is a missionary in Taiwan. He calls me whenever he is in Houston and comes and visits our little Chinese church in Chinatown. Here, I have a photo of him.” Ed pulls out his iphone and shows me a photo of J. Hudson Taylor IV and his Chinese wife. Then we shared Hudson Taylor quotes for a moment and then got back to designing landscaping. I don’t know if this little exchange was a message to me from God but I am receiving it as such anyway.

 

I also couldn’t help but think about the incredible legacy of Hudson Taylor and to pray that God will give me children five generations from me, if He tarries, who are still serving the Lord, maybe even in Colombia. When I wrote my book, The Blessed Family, a few years ago, in the first chapter, Value of a Vision, I talked about the legacy of men like Hudson Taylor and William Booth and how I pray for the next ten generations of Bullen descendants. I used the illustration that if our five children (at the time) each married and had five children and each of them married and had five children and so on and if my wife and I thoroughly discipled our children and they thoroughly discipled their children that in ten generations we will have impacted twenty million souls just by bringing up our own children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Hearing about J. Hudson Taylor IV today reminded me that my greatest ministry may be after I have been in heaven a long time. Praise God!

 

Please pray for our family as we move into the next phase of this grand adventure of following Christ.