Sacrifice?

Dr. David Livingston, served as a missionary explorer to Africa from 1841-1873. He left his medical practice in London to spread the gospel in the heartland of the African continent and fought the Arab slave trade in the process. He became the best known and most loved of missionaries to Africa. He traveled a total of 29,000 miles during his missionary life. In 1873 David Livingston was found dead in an African hut, where he died on his knees in prayer. David Livingston died on his knees in prayer! What a way to go! When he died those who had been blessed by his ministry buried his heart under a tree in Africa and carried his embalmed body on a one year journey to the sea where it could be taken to his homeland of England and buried there. But his heart remained in Africa. In England he received the burial honors due a prince or king. What did this great partner of Jesus say about his life? Listen:

"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owed to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter?

"Away with such a word, such a view, and such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say, rather, it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us." - David Livingston, missionary to Africa.