Spark almost gone? You need to read about Paton

On a cold and damp winter’s morning my aging car just would not start and my neighbours were coming close to seeing the local RP minister give his annoying automobile a John Cleese esque thrashing.  For 130,000 miles the original battery had methodically sparked life into the tiring engine but now the spark was almost gone.  Thankfully the helpful breakdown man had just what was needed, an energy bumping power-pack, two life conducting cables, and a couple of snappy crocodile-like jaws.  Within seconds the lifeless battery was buzzing with life again and the engine turning freely eager for its morning work out on the daily school run.

When it comes to our spiritual life there can be occasions when a dull and lethal lethargy creeps into the soul. On these occasions a glimpse of the heaven fuelled life of God’s saints from past and present can be just the life surging boost that is needed.

So if it is topping up on zeal for service, or fuelling with courage for telling others, or energizing to keep going, or boosting with enthusiasm to do your bit, or a cobweb busting understanding that God has a plan for your life, then, the life of John G. Paton may well be the supercharge that you need.

Though grace does not flow in the blood, the life powering Spirit that invigorated his Covenanting forefathers animated the soul of John G Paton.  His godly home was God’s means for shaping his young life and making him the great missionary of the cross. By the time John was the age of some of the youngest readers of this magazine he was aware of the calling of God for his life.  Before he had made it to the dizzy heights of twelve his life’s aim was to be a missionary of the cross or minister of the gospel.  It was a call sparked by the prayers of his godly father pleading daily in family worship for the conversion of the nations.  It was a call that grew as he matured, increasingly conscious that his Saviour was calling him and that clarity of call was a life-delivering conduit of courage.  Rest assured young Christian, your God is shaping you too and he will guide you in what he wants you to do with your life, even now shaping you for tomorrow’s tasks.

But let’s be honest, would you have gone where John boldly went? Preceding Paton, John Williams and James Harris had been the first to bring the light of the gospel to the New Hebrides, a group of eighty islands in the South Pacific.  In 1839 they had barely made it up the beach on Erromanga when they were cut down, chopped up and on the evening menu for the locals.  Paton, however, didn’t see this as a sign to forget about these isolated islands of the South Seas. Rather, he wrote many years later, “Thus were the New Hebrides baptized with the blood of martyrs and Christ thereby told the whole Christian world that he claimed these islands as his own.”

Ten years after the blood of Williams and Harris had trickled deep into the silver sand of Erromanga two more men, John Geddie and Paton’s fellow Scottish RP minister John Inglis were dispatched and within a few years half the neighbouring island of Aneityum had been won for Christ. John Paton and his second wife Margaret joined them by serving on the neighbouring island Aniwa. Within a few years he could state, “I claimed Aniwa for Jesus and by the grace of God Aniwa now worships at the Saviour’s feet.

In 1980 the islands gained independence from France and Britain and were renamed Vanuata. The fruit of the Paton’s labour remains: today 41% of the population of the islands are designated as evangelical Christians. (Joshua Project)

Paton’s sense of God’s call drew him away from a successful mission in Glasgow and enabled him to persevere on remote shores when most men considered him mad.  In April 1858 at the age of 34 with his young wife Mary he landed on the shores of notorious Tanna (another island in the New Hebrides archipelago) with its resident cannibals.  How gracious of God to raise up these young missionaries with a heart on fire for reaching the lost.  As you read of God’s dealing with John Paton you too may find your heart being moved for the lost, not necessarily pagans of the South Seas but the equally lost neighbours and friends that you have.

Sometimes our langorious labours boil down to a plain old lack of courage.  John Paton, however, seemed to have had courage by the bucket load.  Not only courage to go but also courage to stick at it.  To say it was hard for John is simply one giant understatement.  Within a few months of landing on Tanna John was digging a grave for his young wife and infant son.  All alone, he laboured on amongst the ungrateful Tanna savages, day and daily wondering if he would live.  The dread that each sickness might be his last was a constant worry.  Added to that he lived amongst a people who daily sought his life, in fact to say that many wanted to have him for dinner was not a statement of hospitality but hatred driven hostility.  Yet on John laboured, conscious that the promise of Jesus was utterly reliable, “Lo I am with you aays.”

Perhaps as you read this article you too are in need of courage for your path of service.  Not that it’s likely you are facing dying from diahorrea or being slashed to death with a machete, but your difficult providence has brought its own challenges – fear not! John’s Jesus is still the same and his promise has lost none of its reassuring reality.

Maybe your lack of spark is the draining challenge of serving God faithfully but, to date, fruitlessly.  Take a look at John and banish any thought of giving up.  Four long, dangerous, dread filled years on Tanna with no apparent fruit for his sacrifice.  Was it time for John to pack his bags and head for the familiar haunts of Glasgow where the fruit of his labours among her churches were still on show?  Was it time to ease up and give up?  The thought never seems to have drifted across John’s mind. After his time on Tanna he took to the seas, covering tens of thousands of miles to raise finances for the work from around the world.  His constant longing was to be back among the people and in 1866 he and his second wife Margaret returned to the islands, this time to Aniwa where, though challenging, the fruit finally fell.

So, stick at it reader, tomorrow may be the day that the floodgates of heaven break open with blessing upon your labours.

Not all Messenger readers are at school or uni.  In fact if truth be told there are plenty of the free bus pass group who read this, and maybe you are saying – I am feeling a little tired, my best days are behind me, I think I will cruise to the finish line.  Well before you go for the proverbial pipe and slippers, take a look at Paton and see that God has work yet for you to do.  Slowing down didn’t dawn on this lion-hearted missionary of the cross.  In fact, as the finish line approached speeding up was his way of focusing upon it with greater clarity and conviction.  This last section of his race brought about the setting up of the John G Paton Fund and translation of the New Testament in the language of the Aniwan people.  In many ways his last lap was the best of all.

So, before you go for rusting out your remaining days consider Paton’s bursting on to new challenges, they may be your best days yet of service yet.  We would all do well to ponder the aging saint’s mantra, "My time is so short in which to work for Jesus, and the heathen are perishing.”

To experience the boost more fully connect up with the following in the order suggested:

John G. Paton, Missionary to the Cannibals of the South Seas, Paul Schlehlein

John G. Paton, You will be eaten by cannibals

John G. Paton Missionary to the New Hebrides, Autobiography

Margaret Paton, Letter from the South Seas

John G. Paton, Later years and farewell, A.K. Langridge & F.H.L. Paton