William Carey mended shoes for a living. He never went to anything like high school or college. Yet by the time he was twenty-one, he had taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Italian, and he was starting on French.

He kept a map of the world on the wall of his little shop. While his hands worked leather, his heart wandered to places that had never heard of Jesus.

History calls him the father of modern missions. I think of him as proof of what God can do with an ordinary man who simply believes Him.

“Young Man, Sit Down”

Carey had a question that wouldn’t leave him alone. Jesus told the apostles to teach all nations, and He promised to be with them to the end of the world. If the promise still stood, didn’t the command still stand too?

In those days almost nobody thought so. There were no missionary societies. There was little interest at all. So at a gathering of ministers, Carey raised the question for discussion.

The story goes that an older minister cut him off. “Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”

Even his friend Andrew Fuller struggled to believe it could happen. He compared his own doubts to the officer in Samaria who scoffed at God’s promise.

If the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? 2 Kings 7:2

Carey didn’t argue louder. He went home and wrote. His little book, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, laid out the case one page at a time. Then he preached a sermon that turned the tide.

Expect Great Things, Attempt Great Things

Carey took his text from Isaiah.

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles. Isaiah 54:2-3

His message came down to two short lines. Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

Look at the order. Expectation comes first. Carey wasn’t telling tired Christians to try harder. He was telling them to look up and see how big God is. Great attempts grow out of great expectations, and great expectations grow out of knowing the God who keeps His word.

What Expecting Looks Like

God told Israel, “thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left.” That isn’t a demand. It’s a promise. He would spread them out. Their children would inherit the nations.

So let me ask you gently. What are you expecting God to do with your life? With your family? With your church? Most of us expect far too little from a Father who loves the whole world.

What Attempting Looks Like

Isaiah gives a picture anyone in a desert would understand. Make the tent bigger. Stretch the curtains farther. Don’t hold back. Let out more rope, and drive the stakes deeper so the tent can take the wind.

For a church, that means reaching beyond the people we already know. It means spending money on things that will never come back to us. It means sparing no effort to get the gospel where it hasn’t gone.

Here’s a question worth sitting with. What are you attempting for God that goes beyond reason and beyond the call of duty? Not to earn anything. You already have His love. But because His love is too big to keep in a small tent.

“I Will Hold the Ropes”

When a small group finally formed a missionary society, they had to decide where to go. The field was the world, but which part?

They chose India. Fuller, the same man who once doubted, told Carey something that has stirred missionaries ever since. “It is clear that there is a rich mine of gold in India. If you will go down, I will hold the ropes.”

I love that the doubter became the rope holder. God changed his heart. Fuller spent the rest of his life raising money, writing letters, and praying for the men in India.

Not everyone goes down into the mine. But someone has to hold the ropes. That’s where most of us fit, and it matters every bit as much.

What It Cost Him

I don’t want to paint Carey’s life as easy. It wasn’t.

He served forty-one years in India and never took a furlough. Along the way, he buried children and two wives. His first wife’s mind broke under the strain, and he cared for her for years before she died.

One of his sons, Felix, left the mission to work as a government agent. Carey wrote home with a heavy heart. “Felix is shriveled from a missionary into an ambassador.” He grieved that his son traded the service of the King of Kings for the service of an earthly king.

And still he kept working. Carey and his co-workers translated the entire Bible into six languages and parts of it into twenty-nine more. The cobbler who never went to college opened the Scriptures to millions.

Pain didn’t prove God had left him. Pain was the place where Carey learned how faithful God is. I’ve learned the same lesson in my own hospital beds. The Father doesn’t leave.

Why the World Still Matters

Carey’s question still deserves an answer today. Why should ordinary believers care about people on the other side of the world? Scripture gives us several reasons.

Because Jesus Sent Us

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Matthew 28:18-20

Notice how the command is wrapped. It starts with His authority and ends with His presence. He never sends us out alone. He told His disciples to preach repentance and remission of sins in His name among all nations (Luke 24:47), and He promised,

“ye shall be witnesses unto me” (Acts 1:8).

Because the Father Doesn’t Want Anyone Lost

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

This is the Father's heart. He

“will have all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Jesus tasted death

“for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).

He is the propitiation not for our sins only,

“but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:17

Every person in every village has already been loved and already been paid for. They just haven’t heard.

Because There Is Only One Door

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6

Peter said it just as plainly.

“There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Jesus called Himself the door (John 10:9).

I don’t write these next words lightly. Scripture says that people without Christ are

“condemned already” (John 3:18).

It describes them as

“having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).

That isn’t a scare tactic. It’s an honest look at why the good news is so good.

Because They Still Have to Hear

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:13-14

Paul felt this so deeply that he wrote of

“great heaviness and continual sorrow” in his heart (Romans 9:2).

His heart’s desire and prayer was that his own people would be saved (Romans 10:1). He even told one church,

“some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34).

Carey felt it too. So did every missionary I’ve ever admired. That ache isn’t guilt. It’s what happens when the Father’s heart starts beating inside yours.

What Will You Attempt?

You don’t have to be William Carey. You only have to be available to the same God. Here are a few places to start.

• Expect something. Ask God what He wants to do through your life and your family for the nations. Write it down.
• Hold a rope. Choose a missionary, commit to pray for him, and give to his work every month.
• Stretch your tent. Ask your church what it would look like to reach one people group that has never heard.
• Spare not. Give something this year that stretches you. Then watch how generous He is with you.
• Stay open. Tell the Lord you’re willing to go if He sends you. Then rest and let Him lead.

“On Thy Kind Arms I Fall”

William Carey died in India in 1834. He had translated Bibles, planted churches, founded a college, and fought to end cruel practices against widows. You might expect a long list of honors on his grave.

Instead, he asked for two simple lines.

A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall.

From the grave of William Carey

That’s grace. The man who attempted the greatest things never trusted in them. He trusted in the Father's kind arms, and those arms held him all the way home.

Those same arms hold you. You don’t need to prove yourself to God. You’re already His. So expect great things from Him, attempt great things for Him, and when it’s all said and done, fall into His arms the same way Carey did. We live for an Audience of One, and He has never let one of His children fall to the ground.

If this stirred your heart for the nations, I’d love to keep walking with you. Every week I write about the grace that follows the God who loves the whole world and us. Subscribe to Followed by Mercy so you don’t miss the next one, and share this with someone who’s ready to hold a rope.

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